Aruna Shanbaug Dies after 42 Years in PVS

Aruna Shanbaug has died in Mumbai after spending 42 years in a vegetative state.



Shanbaug suffered brain damage from a sexual assault and strangling in 1973 by a cleaner at the hospital where she worked. She remained in a vegetative state in Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial Hospital until her death this week.  (Wall Street Journal)



In 2011, the Supreme Court considered Shanbaug’s case after her biographer and friend, Pinki Virani, filed a petition asking judges to order the hospital to stop feeding her and “allow her to die peacefully.”  But, as I wrote at the time, the court denied Virani's petition.