The government of India says it has no plans to give legal status to euthanasia or “mercy killing” and would not consider any such application.
“Government is not considering to give legal status to euthanasia. Till date law has not permitted it and application for the same cannot be entertained,” Minister of State for Law and Justice K Venkatapathy said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
Hello,
Euthanasia should be allowed by law. But in a country like India, lots of checks & safeguards have to be in place first. Moreover, as long as the person who needs to be given euthanasia is asking for it (& not his relatives), it should be administered. (that seems to be a tall order perhaps, because if someone is hospitalized, it can easily be argued that he is not in sound mind). But then hospitalization should not be a mandatory condition to administer euthanasia. There is no use in unnecessarily prolonging the misery.
But there is also the other aspect: recently there were some news reports in India, where some people publicly (i.e. involved the news channels etc.) petitioned the govt. or the Supreme Court (even the President) that they be allowed to die, due to XYZ reasons…! This seems like blatant emotional blackmail, since except for one, none of the other petitioners (or their relatives) were in real discomfort.
Could a person make provisions for euthanasia in his will? for e.g. I include in my will that when/if I get such and such disease/condition, or if such and such incident happens, (and I may or may not be hospitalized when/after such circumstance occurs), then I want to be euthanized.
In this case, the sanity of mind can’t be questioned. The only two oppositions would be:
a)the will is forged (to include the wish to die)
b)it might be argued that though the wish for euthanasia was made in sound mind, at later stage (when the actual circustance has occured), there might be a change of mind.
Anyways, I STRONGLY support legalization of euthanasia.
Just to share my thoughts on this subject.
Regards