Comments on: Euthanasia-The right to end one’s Life

By: Arvind Singh

Arvind Singh — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:36:09 +0000

Very Nice article, But not agree that mercy killing id good.Any person, doesn’t have the right to choose anyone’s birth..then how can he have the right, to choose anyone’s death? May he be the victim’s family member, or the victim, himself. Till now, we have heard a lot of suicides. Isn’t Mercy Killing(if taken consent from the person himself) also a suicide?? And if suicide is said to be wrong, then why don’t mercy killing too? I read som on http://www.lawisgreek.com/german-court-legalizes-euthanasia/

By: August

August — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 19:19:11 +0000

A good example related to this post is the movie “Million Dollar Baby”. The girl Maggie is lying on the hospital bed, day by day her every organs are getting paralysed. Maggie asks Dunn(her coach) to be relieved of her suffering and help her die. Dunn refuses, but does speak with his priest, who objects to the idea of euthanasia, sympathetically but firmly saying that it is murder. Maggie then attempts suicide by biting her tongue multiple times in an attempt to choke to death on her own blood. Though hospital staff prevent further suicide attempts, Dunn decides that Maggie’s suffering should not continue, and he injects her with an overdose of adrenaline and he kills her.

By: Shashank Gupta

Shashank Gupta — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:36:02 +0000

I`m not an opposer of the right to die, but, as shumit said, it is a clear route to right to die that matters. Who and what circumstances to decide for a person to die still remains an answer to be decided. Also, it always varies with every individual. People can never be equal in their thought process. So, in a conscious state of mind, I believe it is best for the person himself to decide. As for a person who awaits this conscious state of mind the issue is still left undecided.

By: shumit

shumit — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:48:30 +0000

Hello Unpretentious,

You have raised an important question here. Does the right to live include the right to end one’s life too?

I’d agree that an individual has the right to self determine their own life and as a consequence also has the right to decide if their life is no longer possible to lead.

The question really arrives when a person is in some vegetative state and cannot directly self-determine what they want. This is only truly possible if they have somehow related their wishes in a will or similar before they ended up in a vegetative state.

In this situation the law will regard the ‘right to life’ of the victim and nobody else including the physician has the right to just decide whether to ‘switch off’ the machine or not. There is always the hope of a ‘miraculous recovery’ which might be lost if a hasty decision is taken.

There is also the consideration of false claims being made by unscrupulous relations/parties who are happy to demand the ‘switch off’ of somebody purely because it is convenient for them.

The laws exist to protect and defend against this sort of misuse. Unfortunately the result is that nobody gets a clear route to the right to die, at least in the formal process of things. This is most troublesome when the victim is in no position to demand any right at all.

If the victim is conscious and able to make a decision of this magnitude, then in my view, their wishes must be respected in full.