Written by: Ammar Azhar
Article: Euthanasia – Mercy Killing or a Murder. “For me, life is the most beautiful gift of God to mankind, therefore people and nations who
destroy life by abortion and euthanasia are the poorest. I do not say legal or illegal, but I
think that no human hand should be raised to kill a life, since life is God’s life in us, even in
an unborn child.” – Mother Teressa
Euthanasia has its origin in Greece. The word means ‘God death’. There are certain
dimensions to it. It is active or passive and voluntary (with the consent of the patient) or
involuntary (with the consent of patient’s family members, relatives, or guardian). Moreover,
there is a physician assisted euthanasia in which the physician facilitates the patient’s death
by providing information that enables patient to end his life. Society expects health
professionals to ‘cure’ whereas, the role of medical professionals is to take palliative care.
Practicing euthanasia contradicts the core purpose of the patient being admitted to the
hospital which is to be taken palliative care. Further, there are legal, ethical, religious,
economic, and social ramifications.
The issue of decriminalizing euthanasia or assisted euthanasia is widely debated in today’s
world. Only five jurisdictions in the world has legalized euthanasia or physician-assisted
euthanasia: The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Victoria (Australia) and Western
Australia. However, in India, abetment of suicide and attempt to suicide are criminal
offenses. Article 21 (Right to life) of Indian Constitution does not include ‘right to die’.
Hence, according to Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sec 306 (Abetment of commission of suicide)
violates Article 21 of the constitution. Therefore, Attempt to suicide (IPC Sec 309) and
Abetment of suicide (IPC Sec 306) are two distinct offenses. A very strong concern is
expressed that if euthanasia is legalized, state may refuse to invest in health which is ‘right to
life’.
According to the study of psychology, attempt to suicide is a psychiatric emergency and is
considered as a desperate call for help. A person intending to end his life needs help instead
of the punishment. These patients may be suffering from depression, schizophrenia and
substance using. Therefore, their mental status is to be assessed. These kinds of patients need
effective therapy. This requires rehabilitative care from the health professionals.
Practicing euthanasia, be it of any dimension, is against ethics. Doctors, frustrated by a
severely- ill patient may practice euthanasia if decriminalized which is against the
professional ethics. Religiously, life and death of a person is God’s will, and no human
should interfere in these matters. Also, there are risks of involuntary euthanasia. Family
members or relatives may have mala fide intentions to inherit the property of the patient.
Instead, palliative care provides deaths which are dignified for the patient as well as for the
caregivers.
People in favor of euthanasia talk about scarce resources. They argue that it is better to
practice euthanasia and end one’s suffering than wasting our scarce and valuable resources on
a partially dead person. To counter this argument, I would say that the idea and the intention
of a welfare state is to provide care when cure is not possible at low cost methods. Many of
the doctors ask relatives or guardians to get the patient discharged from the hospital and wait
for the death to come. Many do so. Some due to heavy expenditure on medical treatments and
some due to realization that the case of the patient is hopeless and people can only pray to
God. This way sanctity of life is preserved.
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Keeping all that aside, even if euthanasia gets legalized, how are we going to keep it away
from our children? What if a child gets severely ill? Many of us cannot endorse killing a child
be it a ‘mercy killing’. Besides this, hope runs the world. If we kill the patients, we will never
see miracles happen and we will never get to study cases and make medical advancements.
The cure comes within when one’s soul is nurtured. We just have to take care. This is what
we are supposed to do as humans as well as health professionals.
Euthanasia – Mercy Killing or a Murder
