MERCY KILLING – SOUNDS MORE MERCILESS

A staunch optimist that I am, I have never considered death to be a solution to any problem. The biggest loser in death is the person dying himself. I would say, in most cases in today’s world, even the person closest to the dying person, may only stand to gain either by inheriting some wealth or atleast an end to the agony of having a troubled person close to him.

So of what use is a solution which only leaves you a loser that too with no second chance.

But what about mercy killing. At first, I am not able to give a rational explanation either in favour or against it. I always believed that our life started with a single cell and we should strive to live till the last cell in our body is alive. This applies as much to the physically and mentally challenged too.

When I read this case in Kolkata, where a father has made an application to the West Bengal Government to put an end to the life of his physically challenged daughters because he is too old and there is nobody to take care of them after his death and except for breathing, they require his help for everything, the foundation of my concept of right to live shook badly. I was suddenly forced to think , that like every law, should the right to live also have an exception clause attached to it.

In this said case the father feels that life has become more a punishment than a right to his daughters, but the daughters are not in a position to give their opinion. The West Bengal Government is undecided, may be, because if mercy killing is granted it will become a precedent for people without the determination to live to opt this rule and more for inhuman parents and siblings who do not want to accept the responsibility of such not so lucky people, to put an end to their life, may be much against the very persons will.

The question is how to prove the killing was out of mercy and not merciless as there is a definite possibility of misuse of this rule worldwide and more so in our country. How to ascertain the feelings of the person on whom the said mercy is to be bestowed, if he or she is not in a position to express. I am sure nobody in this world would accept death with total happiness and contentment.

In view of the dangerous implications of misuse of mercy killings, I am of the opinion that the Government should not grant it even in the exception of exceptional cases, though I understand a lot of people who live the life of a vegetable and their caretakers may admonish me for this thought. In the end, though a bit shaken, I have come back to strongly believe that life, in whatever quantity and form it is available to us, has to be LIVED completely, what cannot be cured has to be endured and never censured.