Reading the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in its General Comment No. 14 (2000) regarding the right to health, I found the following statement that older persons have the right to health measures that include “sparing them avoidable pain and enabling them to die with dignity”. While the Comment does not delve into details regarding which kinds of measures are acceptable and which are not, the notion of “dying with dignity” does bring to mind the controversial question of euthanasia. Of course it is important to note here that Euthanasia is not constricted to older people but could also be applied to terminally-ill people of all ages.
While a number of liberal European countries have already legalised the practice with the assistance of a board of experts to decide on each case before granting permission to shortening a patient’s life, this is probably not going to be the case any time soon when it comes to more conservative and religion-based governments where the question, unfortunately, does not even get the chance of reaching an objective platform of debate.
While I do not particularly advocate the use of euthanasia, otherwise known as “mercy killing”, I think it is significant to open channels of discussion on this topic because of its direct effects on countless patients suffering out there. The WHO acknowledges that every person has a right to “a state of complete physical mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. So doesn’t this topic deserve an objective debate based on a human-rights approach?
While a number of liberal European countries have already legalised the practice with the assistance of a board of experts to decide on each case before granting permission to shortening a patient’s life, this is probably not going to be the case any time soon when it comes to more conservative and religion-based governments where the question, unfortunately, does not even get the chance of reaching an objective platform of debate.
While I do not particularly advocate the use of euthanasia, otherwise known as “mercy killing”, I think it is significant to open channels of discussion on this topic because of its direct effects on countless patients suffering out there. The WHO acknowledges that every person has a right to “a state of complete physical mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. So doesn’t this topic deserve an objective debate based on a human-rights approach?
(Painting by Jibran Khalil Jibran)