This means providing treatment usually to reduce pain that has the side effect of speeding the patient's death. Since the primary intention is not to kill, this is seen by some people but not all as morally acceptable.
A justification along these lines is formally called the doctrine of double effect. This usually refers to cases where the person who is going to die needs help to kill themselves and asks for it. It may be something as simple as getting drugs for the person and putting those drugs within their reach. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled.
While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. For example by giving lethal dose of a drug or by giving a lethal injection. Active euthanasia is usually a quicker means of causing death and all forms of active euthanasia are illegal.
It is intentionally causing death by not providing essential, necessary and ordinary care or food and water. It implies to discontinuing, withdrawing or removing artificial life support system. Passive euthanasia is usually slower and more uncomfortable than active.
Most forms of voluntary, passive and some instance of non-voluntary, passive euthanasia are legal. There is no euthanasia unless the death is intentionally caused by what was done or not done. These acts include not commencing treatment that would not provide a benefit to the patient, withdrawing treatment that has been shown to be ineffective, too burdensome or is unwanted, and the giving of high doses of pain-killers that may endanger life, when they have been shown to be necessary.
All those are part of good medical practice, endorsed by law, when they are properly carried out. In some countries it is legalised or in others, it is criminalized. It was held to be legal in the case of Wake v. Subsequently the Euthanasia Laws Act, legalised it. Although it is a crime in most Australian states to assist euthanasia, prosecution have been rare.
In , the matter that the relatives and friends who provided moral support to an elder women to commit suicide was extensively investigated by police, but no charges were made. In Tasmania in , a nurse was convicted of assisting in the death of her mother and father who were both suffering from incurable illnesses.
She was sentenced to two and half years in jail but the judge later suspended the conviction because he believed the community did not want the woman put behind bars. This sparked debate about decriminalization of euthanasia.
Passive euthanasia is considered legal if three or more family members consent to the decisions. All these acts must be referred to the authorities before allowing in order to satisfying essential requirements.
According to the penal code of the Netherlands killing a person on his request is punishable with twelve years of imprisonment or fine and also a assisting a person to commit suicide is also punishable by imprisonment up to three years or fine. In spite of this provision, the courts of Netherlands have come to interpret the law as providing a defence to charges of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide. The defence allowed is that of necessity.
The criteria laid down by the courts to determine whether the defence of necessity applies in a given case of euthanasia, have been summarized by Mrs. Borst-Eilers as follows; 1. The request for euthanasia must come only from the patient and must be entirely free and voluntary. The patient must be experiencing intolerable not necessarily physical suffering, with no prospect of improvement. Euthanasia must be the last resort. Euthanasia must be performed by a physician.
The physician must consult with an independent physician colleague who has experience in this field. Thus, though active euthanasia is technically unlawful in the Netherlands, it is considered justified not legally punishable if the physician follows the guidelines. In , Netherlands legalised euthanasia. The law codified a 20 years old convention of not prosecuting doctors who have committed euthanasia in very specific cases, under very specific circumstances.
It allows a doctor to end the life of a patient suffering unbearable pain from an incurable condition, if the patient so requests. CANADA In Canada, patients have the right to refuse life sustaining treatments but they do not have the right to demand for euthanasia or assisted suicide. A There is a distinction between passive euthanasia and active euthanasia. Euthanasia has been made totally illegal by the United States Supreme Court in the cases Washington v.
Glucksberg and Vacco v. Only in Oregon, a state in America, physician assisted suicide has been legalized in under Death and Dignity Act. In April , California State legislative committee approved a bill and has become 2nd state to legalise assisted suicide.
ENGLAND Lords it is now settled that a person has a right to refuse life sustaining treatment as part of his rights of autonomy and self- determination. The House of Lords also permitted non voluntary euthanasia in case of patients in a persistent vegetative state. Moreover in a recent case, a British High Court has granted a woman, paralyzed from neck, the right to die by having life support system switched off Dr.
S Jaswal and S. C Baseen,civil and military law journal,p. It does not require the involvement of physician nor is that the patient terminally ill. It only requires that the motive must be unselfish. In Switzerland, euthanasia is illegal but physician assisted suicide has been made legal. However decriminalizing euthanasia was tried in but it recommended where a non- physician helper would have to be prosecuted whereas the physician would not.
Death is not a right, it is the end of all rights and a fate that none of us can escape. The ultimate right we have as human beings is the right to life, an inalienable right not even the person who possesses it can never take that away.
It is similar to the fact that our right to liberty does not give us the freedom to sell ourselves into slavery. Of course, what this objection really relates to is the supposed lack of dignity of forcing someone to endure suffering rather than allowing them to end their life. However better pain alleviation techniques are a more moral solution to this problem than killing those who are suffering.
The question whether Article 21 includes right to die or not first came into consideration in the case State of Maharashtra v. Maruti Shripathi Dubal. The court clearly said in this case that right to die is not unnatural; it is just uncommon and abnormal. Also the court mentioned about many instances in which a person may want to end his life.
This was upheld by the Supreme Court in the case P. Rathinam v. Union of India. However in the case Gian Kaur v. In many cases, doctors will provide people with a drug they can take to end their life. A lethal dose of opioids, for example, may be prescribed for this. For example, an injection of a lethal drug may be used. This is known as active euthanasia. Purposely giving someone a lethal dose of a sedative is considered active euthanasia. Passive euthanasia is sometimes described as withholding or limiting life-sustaining treatments so that a person passes more quickly.
A doctor may also prescribe increasingly high doses of pain-killing medication. Overtime, the doses may become toxic. This makes the distinction between passive euthanasia and palliative care blurry. Palliative care focuses on keeping people as comfortable as possible at the end of their life. For example, a palliative care doctor might allow someone approaching death to stop taking a medication that causes unpleasant side effects.
In other cases, they might allow someone to take a much higher dose of a pain medication to treat severe pain. This is often a standard part of good palliative care. The person must give their full consent and demonstrate that they fully understand what will happen. A close family member usually makes the decision. This is generally done when someone is completely unconscious or permanently incapacitated. People have debated over the ethics and legality of euthanasia and PAS for centuries.
Today, laws about euthanasia and PAS are different across states and countries. Each of these states and Washington, D. Not every case of PAS is legal. The same was advocated by the judgment from the Constitution Bench of the Apex Court in the year in Gian Kaur vs. State of Punjab where it stated that the right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution does not include the right to die.
Notwithstanding these legal predicaments, passive euthanasia is not illegal in most parts of the world including India; provided certain standard safeguards are present as demonstrated by Supreme Court in Aruna Shanbaug case, which we will be discussing here.
To put things into right perspective let us ask ourselves a simple question, what is the need of Euthanasia? Before the industrial and scientific revolution, the scientists had not invented the artificial ways of keeping a terminally ill patient alive, like ventilators, heart lung machines, artificial feeding, etc. Such patients would have naturally died during the ordinary course of nature.
With the scientific revolution, there was better and in-depth understanding of the human body. Simultaneously there was advent of new technology and machines, through which it is possible to prolong the life. Even though the patients are kept alive, often they will be in extreme physical pain and suffering emotional, social and financial. Next logical question will be when can we classify a patient as terminally ill?
Thus according to it, the patient must be suffering some ailment causing extreme pain and suffering, which according to equitable and unbiased medical opinion, will lead to his death sooner or later.
Second scenario is when the patient has slipped into Irreversible Permanent Vegetative State. These patients without active lifesaving mechanisms or life prolonging procedures will die a natural death. Thus one would like to ask would it be reasonable to simply keep the patient alive if he is suffering from intractable pain, psychological and emotional distress just for the sake of keeping him alive. And in a place like India where most of its citizens meet their health expenses from their own pockets, continuing such expensive treatments results in considerable financial burden on poor households, often pushing them deeper into poverty.
Even if the patient is having medical insurance it is usually inadequate. Poignantly our government health sector spending is perilously inadequate and is over burdened by huge population putting strain on the limited government resources.
It has been pointed out that in Hinduism, the word for suicide, atma-gatha, has also the elements of intentionality. The intention to voluntarily kill oneself for selfish motives was condemned in Hinduism. Subjectively, the evil sprang from a product of ignorance and passion; objectively, the evil encompassed the karmic consequences which impeded the progress of liberation.
It was in this context that the Dharmasutras vehemently prohibited suicide. Nevertheless, Hinduism venerated enlightened people who voluntarily decided their mode of death. Crawford lists fasting, self-immolation, and drowning at holy places as other examples of such venerated deaths. Such deaths by enlightened persons have never been equated with the popular notion of suicide in the Indian tradition.
It has been always considered that suicide increases the difficulties in subsequent lives. Can the Hindu stance as mentioned above be extended to the question of euthanasia?
Here, the Indian attitude toward life and death needs special mention. In the Hindu tradition , death acts as a prefiguration and model, through which the ties that bind man's self or soul to cosmic impermanence can be completely broken and through which ultimate goals of immortality and freedom can be finally and definitely attained. Crawford surmises that to ensure such a noble death, the concept of active euthanasia would not be unacceptable to the Indian psyche.
It is also claimed that the evolving soul cannot be equated with mental tranquility as it is at a higher level of consciousness. Thus, though less dogmatic than other religions, Hindus would traditionally remain skeptic in their view about euthanasia.
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