Nurse who drove debate on euthanasia in India dies after 42 years in vegetative state

The nurse who became the face of India’s euthanasia debate has died at the age of 67 from pneumonia.

Aruna Shanbaug died at the King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, where she had worked as a nurse until 1973 when a violent sexual assault caused extensive neurological damage and left her in a vegetative state for the next 42 years.

In 2011 the Supreme Court of India dismissed a plea for the mercy killing of Shanbaug. However, the court said that “some cases of euthanasia could be sanctioned if doctors were to file a case in court.” …