Euthanasia, derived from the Greek word euthanatos, meaning ‘good death’, is the practice of deliberately terminating a patient’s life with the intention of counteracting pain or suffering. The term ‘euthanasia’ was first coined in a medical context by Francis Bacon, in the 17th century, to refer to an easy, painless and happy death whereby it was a physician’s duty to consensually end the life of a patient to prevent further suffering. Euthanasia has been given several names such as mercy killing or assisted suicide; but do these names hold true or is it just straightforward murder? The topic of euthanasia has remained an age-old controversy with proponents putting forward equally effective arguments as their opponents. This debate cuts across complex and dynamic aspects such as legal, ethical, human rights, health, religious, economic, spiritual, social as well as cultural aspects of our civilized society. Hence, the disputable question: Is euthanasia a good practice?
Proponents of this so called ‘mercy killing’ argue that humans should have the right to decide when and how to die. Just like one must have the right to choose what to do in their lives and whom to marry, the choice of the time of death in the scenario of being terminally ill or suffering should be given to the patient. Those patients should be allowed to die instead of being kept alive to suffer more which prompts the main argument: Is It humane then to keep the patient alive or is it better to allow them to take the decision to die? Society permits the putting down of animals as an act of kindness when they are suffering. Why not humans? Some patients only have mere months or weeks to live and are in unimaginable pain for medical reasons and are yet being kept alive against their will; forced to suffer because of the opinion of people. Should this be allowed? Is it acceptable to force paralyzed patients to keep living?
Some argue that it is at the expense of society to keep terminally ill patients alive. A considerable amount of resources is needed for such cases. The patients have to be maintained alive under artificial life support and have to be fed constantly. Also, to allow a patient to die entails relatives and friends of the patient being spared the pain of watching their loved ones agonize in pain. Some patients even feel like they are a burden to society and their family and prefer to terminate their life and relieve their family of the pain, time and effort.
However, strong arguments are put forward by opponents of euthanasia that cast doubts over whether to permit such practice. People argue that no pain is incurable nowadays and all sufferings can be alleviated with medications. Terminally ill patients suffering from various illnesses, among those cancers, are treated with medical cannabis to lessen pain and allow for a less painful death. Therefore, the lack of need for euthanasia.
Furthermore, euthanasia questions the moral conduct of doctors. Essentially, their role is to offer medical help to patients to treat illnesses, injuries and to save lives. Are they now entitled to kill patients? Does assisted suicide not contradict the purpose of doctors? Additionally, doctors would now feel like they are becoming murderers. Despite obtaining the consensus to terminate the patient’s life, the job of performing the process is left on the physician’s shoulders, even if the doctor prescribes the medication which would be taken by the patient himself. Also, euthanasia may hinder advances in the field of medicine. It would discourage the search for new cures and treatments for the terminally ill.
Voluntary euthanasia could also potentially become the stepping stone on a slippery slope leading to involuntary euthanasia whereby those seen as undesirable and viewed as a problem could be killed. Opening the doors to voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide could lead to non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia by handling doctors the power to decide when a patient’s life is not worth living. Such was the case in the Netherlands, in 1990, where around 1000 patients were killed without their requests. Some killings were not even reported by the practitioners which shows a lack of control over the practice. The ‘mercy killing’ thus became the ‘concealed murder.’
This practice hence becomes a questionable one. It is both for and against human morality to kill a patient. Should we relieve the pain of the helpless or violate the human right to life and kill instead? Will there be a better remedy to get around this practice? Only time will tell.
By Navisht Sukhoo
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