Wheelchair-Bound Indore Teacher Appeals for Euthanasia Amid Daily Agony
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Despite severe pain and paralysis, Kumari Chandrakanta Jethani continues teaching, sparking debate on euthanasia, healthcare neglect, and disability rights.
New Delhi, July 26, 2025
In a heart-wrenching case from Indore, government school teacher Kumari Chandrakanta Jethani, who is wheelchair-bound and suffering extreme pain, is asking President Droupadi Murmu for permission to be euthanized. Her circumstances raise not only her situation but larger issues of accountability in health care; disability rights; and end of life choice in India.
Jethani claims that her paralysis is due to medical negligence, including wrong medication dispensing while hospitalized. She claims that her deterioration was aggravated by neglect at an ashram where she was later sent for care. While teaching for 7 to 8 hours a day, she continues to show resilience and commitment to the profession, even with her health deteriorating.
In a last act of altruism, Jethani donated her property to her school and made her organs available to medical science. Now she seeks for euthanasia to relieve her of the suffering she feels, euthanasia being a controversial issue in India where passive euthanasia is only legal under strict Supreme Court guidelines since 2018.
Her appeal reignites urgent discussions about the moral and legal complications of euthanasia. It also highlights the only too obvious gaps in India’s health-care and social support systems for the disabled. Jethani’s narrative is not just one of suffering, it is also one of courage, service, and the call for dignity in life, and at death.
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