Death. How life would have been if we had the freedom to choose our time of death? When the sufferings would prevail, the only thing we would have opted for is to die. But is it justified? Is killing yourself or your loved one justified to end the suffering? In some countries, euthanasia which basically means the ending of a patient’s life by a physician on explicit patient request, on the grounds of unbearable suffering caused by mental illness. But when I encountered a similar situation where I could have opted for mercy killing. I couldn’t give up on my hope that the person whom I love will survive and fight this. It happened like this that some years ago, my grandfather had a major heart attack, because his heart valves were blocked. Since his heart was 20 percent efficient, he was put on ventilator. Doctors had given up on the hope that he might survive, it was on us if we wanted his treatment to continue or not. We couldn’t give up on our hope that he might not survive this, and its good that we went against what doctors advised us. After some years, he fought and recovered. But I still wonder what if we had given up that day? What if we would have went for switching off the ventilator? We wouldn’t have seen the recovery.
So as we are well aware of the fact that mercy killing is not legal in Pakistan, but is it justified? Well, according to me, it is not. The fact that you have to give up on your hope of never being with a loved one, of just ending someone’s life just because right now the consequences do not favour their life.
More over, from Islamic point of view it is considered a sin. As stated in Holy Quran (16:61) “Allah gives life and has the absolute authority of taking it. Allah has apportioned a terminal period to each soul to which upon its expiration, a second cannot be added by anybody. In short, Allah alone has control over death”. This verse explicitly prohibit suicide, euthanasia (killing by clinicians) and other types of homicide. Some scholars also argue that showing endurance (sabr) is better than medical alliance.
Eventhough, Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Luxembarg, Columbia and Germany have legalized Euthanasia, they have seen steep increase in number of deaths by hundredth fold. People just choose to end up their life by asking clinicians to give them a lethal injection. But the question is, how can a person be autonomous, when he is already suffering from a illness, and illness decreases the physical and cognitive capacities?
A mother with tinnitus was assisted to kill herself in Holland, leaving behind her two teenage children of 13 and 15 years of age. What about the custody and life her teenage children? Death of a parent affects children badly, and it would have affected them in a worse way because their mother decided to give up on her life.
So after all this argument, my question still stays the same that how can be the choice to die or let your loved one die, be bettter than the satisfaction to live? No matter how much I try, Euthanasia will never make sense to me. No matter what rock bottom you hit, death is not an option.