Euthanasia: An infernal journey to the depths of human psych

“Mercy killing” is how this concept has been propagated amongst the masses. However, there’s much more to it than meets the eye. This term encompasses medical assistance for termination of life of a person/subject who has reached that nexus point when the sheer agony/suffering of the patient overwhelms him/her to the point that the very continuation of life is inhumane or barbarous, to put it in the mildest terms.

I believe that euthanasia is a mere subset of a much bigger concept of “Right to death”. Should the latter be considered a fundamental right? Logically speaking, yes. The way I see it Right to death is an extension of Right to life. It is his and solely his decision to make. So let us divide this wide spectrum into smaller parts for the sake of arguments:

1. Assisted suicide: It is the act of deliberately assisting or encouraging another person to kill themselves. There are a lot many arguments against this, like:

It violates the sanctity of human life.
The slippery slope argument, i.e. the possibility of its inducing more people to choose to terminate their lives prematurely.
I don’t consider the above mentioned reasons as valid arguments. The bottom line is that life isn’t “sacred” and never has been. Even if it is, the right to biological autonomy over one’s body far exceeds the pretentious “sanctity” imposed by the flag bearers of human life/religion. The slippery slope argument is not considered valid by me because of the lack of field data. However, the following are considered by me as strong points against assisted suicide:

The exploitation of the same as a legal loophole. People might either commit suicide, or induce someone to die, or otherwise kill, while claiming that they were merely assisting the person alleged to have wanted to end his/her life, in order to secure the benefits of the consequences of the person’s death, such as insurance claims etc.
The irreversibility of the decision.
So assisted suicide is to be strongly opposed and must be considered reprehensible.

1. Euthanasia: This further can be divided into three parts:

Voluntary euthanasia: where a person makes a conscious decision to die and asks for help to do this. Not to be confused with assisted suicide.
Non-voluntary euthanasia: where a person is unable to give their consent (for example, because they are in a comatose state or are severely brain damaged) and another person takes the decision on their behalf, often because the ill person previously expressed a wish for their life to be ended in such circumstances.
Involuntary euthanasia: where a person is killed against their expressed wishes. This is often regarded as murder and is strongly opposed.
The first two points do make an impressive ground for euthanasia, the second being considered more debatable than the first.

These points may help one to delineate the fine, blurred boundaries during the relevant circumstances. That said, the legal waters of euthanasia are still murky in India. We have a long way to go ahead before we can start to even think about it.