Can euthanasia be justified?

Letter November 23, 2014
Opponents of euthanasia would argue that individuals also have a right to life, which outweighs their right to death

KARACHI: Death has often been employed as a means of alleviating one’s physical, as well as emotional pain. From the glorious days of the Roman Empire, when death with dignity was not only encouraged, but also deemed mandatory (as opposed to inexorable forms of torture and mortification) to the use of a syringe to cause instant death as the last attempt on the part of a hapless teenager to escape drug addiction. The innate ‘mortido’, which according to psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud is said to be possessed by human beings, seems to manifest itself in situations like these when the soul seeks sweet oblivion after the turmoil of life. Euthanasia or mercy killing is defined as the deliberate means of hastening death in order to extricate oneself from intolerable pain and suffering. This term has been the centre of passionate debate and has also sparked controversies among countries that strictly abide by Abrahamic religions.

Most of the argument is encompassed by the single formidable question: “Is mercy killing ethical or downright merciless?” Countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, the US (which involves states like Oregon), etc. all concur to the individual’s right to end one’s life. In Belgium, a prisoner named Frank Van Den Bleeken was incarcerated on the basis of sexual assault and rape. He stated that the rampant psychological torture and bleak atmosphere of his prison had been chiselling his desire to end his life. Therefore, he consented to slow death through injection in accordance with the legislation legalising euthanasia. Although the Right to the Terminally Ill Act of 1995, legalising euthanasia in Australia was soon nullified in 1997, important advocates for euthanasia, such as Dr Phillip Nitsche, established pro-euthanasia groups like Exit International.

Laws in America, such as Oregon’s Death with Dignity Acts, legalised “physician assisted suicide”, though they do require the consent of the patient or victim. In countries like India, passive euthanasia became legal (although active euthanasia, involving lethal compounds, is still illegal) after the decision of the country’s Supreme Court in May 2011 that permitted passive euthanasia on a female nurse named Aruna Shanbaug. The woman was in permanent vegetative state for at least 37 years after being admitted to King Edwards Memorial Hospital when she was strangled by a sweeper there. Some Indian traditional rituals like Santhara also encourage individuals to terminate their lives when they feel that it is complete. The Groningen Protocol in the Netherlands contained certain criteria for a physician to actively end the lives of infants/children, who suffered from conditions like spina bofida and hydrocephalus. The main principle underlying mercy killing is that an individual has a certain degree of autonomy and independence when it comes to life and death.

However, opponents of euthanasia would argue that individuals also have a right to life, which outweighs their right to death. Religious groups would argue that ending an individual’s life would be a violation of God’s laws or to simply put it, murder. In some cases involving permanent vegetative state, voluntary euthanasia can become involuntary, and hence illegal and blatantly unethical. Furthermore, one cannot neglect the agony of bereavement the death of any terminally ill patients would cause to the respective patient’s family. That said, what if at the person’s last breath, he or she has some kind of epiphany or as researchers would call, a ‘near death experience’, which would spur the individual to live again? In that case, would euthanasia be the last option for the dying soul or the whim of a coward? Or would it be downright merciless?

Hemaila Tariq

Student, Karachi Grammar School

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24th, 2014.

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