A Debate On Euthanasia

By Denise Baptiste

Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 11:47

I hear from my grandmother that my grandpa had suffered four years with throat cancer. Those four years were as torturous to my grandmother as it was to my grandpa. He could not eat anything but was fed through a pipe. As his conditioned worsened he had stopped talking. She would wipe his tears all day long as he would plead for death. He had even asked the doctor for mercy killing but back then such a thing was a big taboo. After 26 years of his death, Supreme Court has legalized passive euthanasia in India.

Passive euthanasia is hastening the death of a person by removing the life support systems and medication. Euthanasia has always been a topic of debate from religious, practical and emotional angles. Killing a person or the permission of artificial death, is it right or wrong? Lets look at the two aspects of the debate.

As now it is been legalized lets start the euthanasia debate, looking at the positive side -

1.From a child to an aged person each one of us fear death but when a person feels death the only solution to peace and respite, one should understand the extent of his suffering in life. People who have been a vegetable for several years, the person whose body is not responding to any treatment and has no hope, sees mercy killing as the only source of peace, can he be wrong? The one who is dying his death everyday, does he not deserve some rest after all the years of suffering? Suffering here is not general prolonged illness but a suffering which has no end but death. Rather than dying everyday, the person pleads the world to relieve him of the pain at once.

2.Life is a gift of God, and there are several reasons to live it to the fullest amidst all the ups and down. But what for the person who is denied all the gifts at once and is just a body whose heart beats with no other prove of him being living. After seeing the best days of his/her life and keeping up his hope for several years when the person finally realises that the state of suffering is his/her future, why should the person suffer it. One whole day of pain, one whole day of life denial is painful, can you image what the person might be going through?

3.When we talk of people suffering, we all sympathies but what when one needs to take the responsibility? Family, relatives, friends feel bad and serve for few days and then the person whom they love are treated as a burden. Denial to physical freedom can be accepted with support of love but is mental support too is taken off, the person dies emotionally and the pain can be understood only by the one facing it.

Euthanasia debate on the negative side -

1.Sometimes in life people come across accidents, illness and diseases which does not respond to any of the advanced medical inventions. The technology can only help the person live and try it's best to treat. A lot of effectiveness of the treatment depends on the believe and the wish of the person to get back to the normal life. The option of mercy killing, may lead to loosing hope very soon. As suffering for one day, one years or several years is the painful in the same way and to loose hope is normal but one should not loose hope so soon.

2.Death is not an answer to all sufferings. The answer to suffering is fighting to life, is to try best to meet all odds, to live life amidst all odds, and to take it up as a challenge. The reason for challenge with the path to death may be hampered.

3.It gives right to another person to take life. No one has the right to take life of the other. How anybody, the court, the lawyers or the doctor decide the fate of someone's life? No one is qualified enough to take the decision.

The debate on Euthanasia is still open. Let us know your views.

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