Right to end life: A euthanasia shocker

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Child psychiatrists and rights activists are shocked at the draft bill on euthanasia that grants terminally-ill minors above 16 years the right to pull the plug on their lives. The draft Medical Treatment of Terminally Ill Patients (Protection of Patients and Medical Practitioners) Bill states that "every competent patient including a minor aged above 16 years has a right to take a decision and express the desire to the medical practitioner attending on him/her to withdraw medical treatment."

A competent person, it says, is one who can take an informed decision. An informed decision means the decision to continue or withdraw medical treatment taken by a patient after he/she had been informed about the nature of his illness, any alternative form of treatment that may be available, the consequences of those forms of treatment, and the consequences of remaining untreated. Child psychiatrist Dr Jayaprakash R. termed the clause "barbarian".

"The myelination of the prefrontal lobe of the brain, or the process by which the nerve fibres are covered with an insulating substance called myelin so that brain signals are efficiently transmitted, will be complete only in the late teens and early 20s," said Dr Jayaprakash, additional professor of paediatrics and child psychiatrist, SAT Hospital here.

"The prefrontal lobe is the chief executive officer of the brain, responsible for decision-making and problem-solving." Dr Jayaprakash said that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies had proved this brain growth pattern.
When the brain is still evolving, individuals tend to be very impulsive. In short, he said, children between 16 and 18 were mentally unsound to take profound decisions.

Psychoanalyst and counsellor Dr C. J. John said granting euthanasia rights to a 16-year-old was "inappropriate". "Teenage, even late teens, is a phase of personality evolution," Dr John said. "Leave alone life and death questions, it is common knowledge that even career decisions taken at the age of 16 or even 19 go badly wrong," he said.

Lawyer J. Sandhya, a member of the State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, said considering a 16-year-old as competent to decide when to die was ridiculous. "When political and marriage rights are withheld till a person is 18, it beats me how a teenager can be saddled with decisions about life and death," she said.