Friends these days the case of Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse ,who was raped by a ward boy, leading to her being in a vegetative state for the past 36 years, has brought to light Euthanasia ,an issue not discussed in India so openly earlier. Let’s look at the various flaws in allowing Euthanasia.
So first start with what is Euthanasia:
Euthanasia is the act of deliberately inducing the death of a patient who is in severe pain and distress as a result of terminal or incurable illness.
There are two distinctions in euthanasia.
Let me discuss first both.
Active Voluntary Euthanasia: a deliberate act of ending the life of a patient with a terminal or incurable disease.
Passive Voluntary Euthanasia: is the deliberate withholding or withdrawing of life-prolonging medical treatment with the aim of hastening of patient’s death.
Some people are supporting it on the basis of 3 grounds:
1. Moral ground: It is against morality to leave someone in severe pain and do nothing for his/ her relief.
2.Human rights: Leaving a patient in severe pain would amount to directly challenging the fundamental right of the individual i.e. the right to a dignified life.
3.Utilitarian ground: this principle believes in the greatest degree of happiness to the maximum number of people. So if anyone is terminally ill, lying in hospital and is in severe pain then it would not bring his/her family happiness and it will suffer because of his/her pain. So, utilitarian thinkers argue that an act or abstaining from an act which does not give happiness to anyone is wrong.
But I believe that exercising the Euthanasia option in any of above respect is wrong.
My arguments for :
For Moral grounds:
(a) It is against the moral basis and beliefs of all regions. Every religion states that no one except God reserves the right to take a person’s life.
(b). It prompts doctors to go against their moral duty of always serving and safeguarding the patients irrespective of the severity of their health.
For Utilitarian grounds:
(a). It will subordinate the interests of individual(patient) to the interests of the majority.
(b) It can justify only in the case of active voluntary euthanasia, not in case of passive euthanasia since patient consent will not receive.
Now I have two strong arguments to oppose both Active & passive euthanasia.
First for Passive euthanasia:
1. It will cover infants and unborn Childs. Look at Netherland, where all these acts were legalized. Netherland lost more than one-fourth of its population and it badly affected unborn babies with a high fall in birthrate in that country. In India it can provoke female foeticide.
2. How can a person or doctor decide that the patient in passive state really wants to terminate his/her life?
Now for Active Euthanasia:
1. It cannot be sure that the consent by a patient is bias free. His/her consent may be motivated by a fear of pain, suffering, distress, dependency or other causes. And these factors combined together give enough room for manipulation by external agents, who may be benefitted from the process of euthanasia. And considering the weak hold of Indian’s administration and judicial system in rural areas, the chances of prohibiting the misuse of euthanasia are lim.
2. There may be a situation where patient wants to die and gives his/her consent for euthanasia but the doctors knows that by taking some positive steps the life can be prolonged. Now in such cases whose consent is to be considered?
So to conclude I would like to say that Euthanasia is impracticable given its susceptibility which makes it prone to misuse.
