Mercy Killing : A Boon or A Bane
- Joncy Lakhani
- July 3, 2020
Content :
A human being cannot avoid four things in his life birth, death, disease and old age. When the person gets trapped in the web of these four unavoidable things then the situations might appear for the weak minded, which may force a person for self-destruction and when he ends his life by his own it is termed as a ‘suicide’. When a person is terminally ill and is going through a fatal and incurable disease and there are no possible chances of a person getting cured than the person himself might ask to kill him in order to prevent him from further suffering this is called ‘Euthanasia’ or commonly known as ‘Mercy Killing’. This paper seeks to disclose what mercy killing is and its legalization in various nations. In India how the Mercy Killing practice is accepted by several religions and what are the contradicting reasons for some religions. The classification of mercy killing in five categories namely Active, Passive, Voluntary, Involuntary and Non-Voluntary and its variegated applications in different nations . These afar the conception of sociologists pertaining Mercy Killing, its legal applicability in India in view of the Constitution of India, Indian Penal Code and other laws in prevalence, therefore laws of other nations in the world are also taken in scrutiny. Further the case of Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug is discussed in detail as it is the reason behind the legalization of Passive Euthanasia in India, also other cases which raises questions regarding validity of section 309 of Indian Penal Code are also discussed in brief.This paper also makes one understand what are the arguments in favor and against the legalization of mercy killing, these are argued on the basis of constitutional provisions, religious books, professional code of ethics and most importantly considering the patient’s self-belief. The reason behind legalizing such controversial act is not development or moving ahead but it’s for the humanity which is the key matter, people also compared mercy killing with that of the ‘suicide’ but it does not make any difference in the legalization of mercy killing, rather just being a part of against argument, as the learned man can very well differentiate amongst the both and thereby knows what is correct and what is not. The argument that, whatever karma serves we have no option than accepting it as it works on his principle of ‘what goes around, comes around’ this is quite correct but there is a problem hereby, looking at someone who is going through the enormous pain and suffering and we holding capacity to help him but you doing nothing is again what fouls your karma and mercy killing is what making one free from the material sufferings by offering him peaceful death for mercy reasons. Henceforth, mercy killing is one of the most perplexing issues which world faces present-day. Some developed nations have given nod to the ‘passive euthanasia’ and India too has joined them and has legalized passive euthanasia by laying some rules and regulations to be followed.
