Mercy Killing

Mercy killing which is used interchangeably with Euthanasia is a much debated subject in the contemporary Medical corners. My profession thrusts on me so many instances of helplessness- where terminally ill patients die with no chances of medicine reverting the course of their illness. When the pain becomes intractable and death becomes inevitable, the urge to overcome the agony by an abrupt end of life, surfaces. I personally feel this event analogous to attempted suicide when one’s circumstances slips beyond one’s capacity to survive. When we vociferously speak against suicide – I don’t think the logic of Euthanasia should find so much of space in the same mind which speaks of the former.

Supporters of physician-assisted suicide, often tell emotive stories of terminally ill patients who ask a doctor to help them die. These stories communicate that an early, premeditated death is the best, and perhaps the only option for the patient. However, a growing number of medical professionals who work with dying patients are speaking out to dispute this perception that early death is the best solution. Consider this statement: "In my clinical practice, I have been asked by suffering patients to aid them in death because of severe pain. I have had the opportunity to see these requests for aid in death fade with adequate pain control, psychological support, provision of family support, and with the promise that their symptoms would be controlled throughout the dying process." (Kathleen Foley, MD serves as Chief of the Pain Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and as director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Cancer Pain Research and Education. In April of 1996, Dr. Foley made the preceding statement before the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution in Washington D.C., a Congressional subcommittee investigating physician-assisted suicide.)

Our society is mainly interested in efficiency and consequently tends to confuse ethical values with usefulness. That leads to utilitarianism, considering life only to be of value if it guarantees a career, joy, social contacts and offers the individual the possibility to do whatever he likes. In other words, it only considers human life to have instrumental value, i.e., having value as long as it serves to gain something. It would, however, not have a value of its own.

Add to this the view of the autonomous ethics that because of the lack of objective norms and values in our pluralistic society, the individual has to decide about his own norms and values, and the circle is complete. If the individual thinks that his life does not serve his purposes any more, he is entitled to terminate it or ask somebody else to do so.

The unborn child, the neonate or one in a protracted coma would be human beings, but no longer human persons with autonomy because they have no rational activities and lack the capacity for human social communication. Others would then have the right to decide on their behalf. Actually, this is a perversion of the concept of human freedom.

All these factors have contributed to the development of the present culture of death, described by John Paul II as follows:

"This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of a society excessively concerned with efficiency. Looking at the situation from this point of view, it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a ’war against the weak’: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person, who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being of a lifestyle of those who are more favored tends to be looked upon as a enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way, a kind of’ ’conspiracy against life’ is unleashed."

The sanctity of human life is a basic value as decreed by God even before the times of Moses, Jesus and Mohammad. Commenting on the killing of Abel by his brother Caine (the two sons of Adam), God says in the Qur’an: "On that account We ordained for the children of Israel that if anyone slay a person -unless it be for murder or spreading mischief in the land- it would be as if he slew the whole people. And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people" (Qur’an 5:32). The Qur’an also says: "Take not life which Allah made sacred otherwise than in the course of justice" (Qur’an 6:151 and 17:33).

Buddhists are not unanimous in their view of euthanasia, and the teachings of the Buddha don’t explicitly deal with it.

Most Buddhists (like almost everyone else) are against involuntary euthanasia. Their position on voluntary euthanasia is less clear.The most common position is that voluntary euthanasia is wrong, because it demonstrates that one’s mind is in a bad state and that one has allowed physical suffering to cause mental suffering.Meditation and the proper use of pain killing drugs should enable a person to attain a state where they are not in mental pain, and so no longer contemplate euthanasia or suicide.Buddhists might also argue that helping to end someone’s life is likely to put the helper into a bad mental state, and this too should be avoided.

Like wise we can find similar thoughts in Hinduism and Judaism. In fact, there is no religion – which believes the creation of mankind by god and at the same time finds it logical to end it by human means.

The law which permits ‘mercy-killing’ has been legalized in Netherlands and in Belgium but in other parts of the world is going through rigorous debating. It might find a space someday or it might not. It’s for time to unfold. As for me- since my religion and human ethics make me respect the sanctity of human life- I’ll try to do everything within my resource as a doctor, to rekindle a desire to live, in a patient who has given up hope of life. Since, killing in any form is killing.