by Kathie S. Decruse
Is it all right to take away a life and play God, or is it all right to save a man’s life against his very own will? In the ordinary sense of the word, Euthanasia refers to the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma.
“Whatever happens, there is no happy ending.” It is not always rainbows on the other side. The law must recognise this and the legislature must come up with effective guidelines, stringent but reasonable.
When a person, say a paraplegic or more so a quadriplegic, one who is completely paralysed from neck down with only excruciating pain to feel, decides to give up on his life because the quality of the life he is living is deteriorating to an unacceptable level complete with misery and intolerable pain, it is obvious to anybody that it is not a passing whim.
Will the law let him live this undignified, demeaning and pointless life, denying him the release he so longs to escape to, only possible by euthanasia; or will the law become flexible enough to let him find this release, amounting to the right to die?
It is a major decision to give up on one’s own life. When one is mentally sound but unable to do anything for himself, depending on strangers and family member completely, becoming a burden and where there is no amount of hope to grip on to for a better future, it becomes extremely difficult for him to stay happy. Bentham’s utilitarian principle of maximising happiness and minimising pain becomes a ‘dry lather’ in situations like these. And of course, who can forget the dire wishes of people who want to die with dignity but are denied it by their own government, who go off to die someplace else where release will be given to them legally; but who wants to die in a foreign country? The satisfaction of ‘dying peacefully in one’s homeland’ is quashed just like that for them.
Moreover, denying the Right to Die for the terminally ill patients who have no hope to get better in the future goes against the Article 3 of theEuropean Convention of Human Rights as well as Article 8 of the same i,e.., the first prohibiting the inhuman/degrading treatment, the second stating the right to respect for private and family life.
In my personal opinion, I strongly put forth the suggestion that the Government, be it the Legislature (parliament), the Executive or the Judiciary, must allow Euthanasia to be legalised with certain important guidelines. These guidelines must not specify who will be eligible for Euthanasia, but it must be looked at on a case-to-case basis. Not all patients are mentally sound, not all are brain-dead and not all have similar conditions. But a yardstick must be laid down in order for any foul play to occur. The government must look upon this matter with utmost diligence and come up with not one but multiple solutions. The law must be framed in such a way that those who really deserve the release and who desire it get it. Just like Horace had said, “To save a man’s life against his will is the same as killing him.”
Yes. We need Euthanasia to be legalised. It must be there are certain cases where people are in a permanent comatose, who are brain-dead because of the terminal degenerative illness, for those are in a complete vegetative state, who are completely hopeless, especially those who are too immobile to even flex a body part or bat an eye. Human existence thrives on activity. They can do something, physical and mental. Once this shuts down, one is just breathing but no more living, no more human in its fullest sense- just a vegetable.
There is a need for humane, civilised and socially oriented outlook and penology. The futility in debating this, over and over, without reaching anywhere only juggles with the lives of those who deal with tremendous bone-wrenching pain, which not only excruciates their very existence but those who are close to them. Legal arguments are fine but they should not forget that a life is affected by the decision they come to – a decision that goes against the terminally ill, the paralysed, condemning them to a “life” of increasing misery. I’m sure the judges have heard it all before but action needs to be taken. “Facta non verba” is how the saying goes, deeds not words. It is very easy to say and write all the opinions, but to put one self in the shoes of those who suffer every day, who wake up only to be reminded of the helpless life they have to live with, only to have pain and sympathy as permanent companions, it is hard. How then should the law deny them this very right?
Almost every country is at a tussle with which side wins and which loses. The prime basis of recommending the government to look into the matter and make necessary steps is to consider the concept of Euthanasia as a part of a human right. The Right to life must include the Right to die, although having strict and reasonable guidelines to be followed both by the Legislature and the Judiciary. In this regard, eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani said that the right to die is a part of a wider concept of liberty. The whole nation of the state controlling your life and death is grotesque. Equally radical is Dr Appa Ghatate, a Supreme Court lawyer who agreed that the right to die should be included in the Indian Constitution as a fundamental right. The very idea of the state controlling your life is absurd.
However, even if the parliament or the people’s court will be the final judge to decide on the legality of passive euthanasia in India, it does not exempt the Judiciary from performing its orderly functions. It must collaborate and cooperate with the Parliament on the said practice and decide together on its legality, thus avoiding biasness. The Judiciary must give the other organs of the Government a supportive shove in order for things to take a serious turn, instead of prolonging the decision-making, not only affecting the patients who are terminally ill but the nation as a whole.
To conclude, the Government must also ensure that the euthanasia option is a choice and not a duty. It signifies the choice and autonomy of a person over his life, by his own self-determination along with strict guidelines of being eligible for euthanasia. It will extinguish the unnecessary threats of other terminally ill people who still want to live, by letting them know that even if the right to die is a choice given to the terminally ill, it does not indicate to a duty whatsoever. Whatever may be the reason, Euthanasia must be legalised, saddled tightly with stringent guidelines which will not allow the ambitious to take advantage nor the meek to fail on trust it.