The name Aruna Shanbaugh has again evoked the long debate on whether euthanasia should be allowed or permitted? Euthanasia or dying with dignity is derived from the Greek word which means ‘Good Death’.
Euthanasia is an act of bringing life to a halt, of person suffering from a terminal tortuous illness lingering death, and as per the medical point of view, the condition is incurable or irrecoverable. Euthanasia is of two types-active and passive. Active euthanasia involves injecting a lethal injection causing death of the patient while passive involves the withdrawal of life saving support to facilitate death.
Death- is not just a five letter word; it is the complete end of our existence. It is the final stoppage of the beautiful gift of Lord-the life. I feel, we simply have no right to choose whether a person should live or not?
The main and important question is who will decide the suitability or requirement of euthanasia for an individual? There is a strong possibility of exploiting the authority. Another strong opposition is that, it won’t be a difficult task getting a manipulated certification from specialists, justifying the act of delivering death, keeping in mind the surmounting corruption in every sphere.
I would like to narrate an important example of MTP Act, which allowed the termination of pregnancies under certain special humane conditions. But the outcome was highly opposite, it has been misused by all and sundry, including the doctors as a facade for performing illegitimate abortions. The world is full of sufferings and miseries. Giving death is not the solution. There are incidences of children being born with various genetic disorders and congenital deformities, or even children born with AIDS. Life is extremely hard for them. Are we going to end their lives too, to lessen their miseries and hardships? An absolute no, would be the obvious answer. Then, why with seriously ill people? How can we give death, if we can’t give life?
Trying to lessen their suffering is a sheer excuse, for trying to run from our societal responsibility. No matter what the situation or reasoning is, we simply cannot justify euthanasia. If euthanasia is justifiable, so committing a suicide is equally permissible. In euthanasia, others decide death and in suicide the individual himself chooses death over life. If we oppose suicide and consider it a crime, we should also not justify or think euthanasia to be ethical.
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There is no 'right to die'. International human rights law protects the living and forbids arbitrary deprivation of life. Facilitation of medicalized killing or self-harm in response to suicidal ideation is in violation of the fundamental human rights principle of inalienability. Human beings cannot be deprived of the substance of their rights, not in any circumstances, not even at their own request. Human rights are applicable to the living. For as long as the terminally ill are alive, each life is to be protected by law against medicalized killing or self-harm. Even at the request of the suicidally distressed, proactive medicalized killing is always a bridge too far. Once the medical profession crosses that Rubicon, the most vulnerable amongst us, the very old, the very disabled, the most burdensome and those without a voice must fear for their lives. To remain alive they will need to furnish adequate rational justification for 'choosing' to remain alive. And it then damages the original, irreplaceable universal agreement that to be alive requires no justification--that it is sufficient simply that one is alive. The dying patient's basic human right to faithful, unstinting care must not be watered down to a mere 'choice'. In this substitution of a choice for a human right, the euthanasia enthusiasts will cheat us all of something that for centuries we had been able to take for granted--the right not to be pressured to hasten our own death—to live our lives to the natural end. Regrettably, many profess a touching faith in the unimpeachable ethics of the medical profession to whom they will entrust their termination. Having researched for some years now the history of the medical profession in Germany 1933-45, I remain a confirmed sceptic when it comes to entrusting to doctors an absolute power to perform medicalized killing. It is imperative that the medical profession continues to improve palliative care. Medical research and health care resources must not be diverted into ktenology (the science of killing). This term was coined by Dr Leo Alexander, who testified for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials involving the crimes of the medical profession. Dr Alexander observed what was well publicized at the time, viz., that a large part of Nazi research 'was devoted to the science of destroying and preventing life'. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1947, Dr Alexander noted the fragility of medical ethics, that the fall of the medical profession started with a 'subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians…the acceptance of the attitude...that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived' and then moved gradually from 'the severely and chronically sick' to encompass 'the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted...'