To die with dignity

Frankie Dunn, the character played by Clint Eastwood, the actor turned producer-director, in Million Dollar Baby, must make a difficult decision. His protégé is suffering with multiple injuries. She is reduced to a vegetable and pleads silently to put an end to her suffering. Frankie, late one night, does so. Mercy killing or murder?

Which raises the larger question-do you have a right over your life? Or does it belong to God? If that be the case, do you even have a right to go to a doctor and take medication for your illness? Very many sects use this logic to say, no. They would rather suffer. After all suffering on this earth is God testing your faith. Religion is silent about medicine playing God and prolonging life.

But there are situations where doctors routinely face the dilemma-prolonging life at what cost? When a person is on a ventilator, alive only because of the machine, and the family decides to pull the plug - is it acceptable? Does a person in pain, with no answers from medicine but otherwise alive in mind and body have no right to seek an end to his agony?  A constitutional bench of the Supreme Court had in 2018 recognized passive euthanasia and the right to die with dignity as a fundamental right subject to guidelines. The process of granting passive euthanasia were in a 2023 decision of the apex court further eased; this in effect means withholding treatment or artificial life support to a terminally ill patient until the remainder of their life. Thus, the law permits passive euthanasia.  But all religions emphasise that life belongs to God, and you have no right to take it. It has become normal for parents to choose the place, date, and timing of birth for their children.  Can a terminally ill person decide the time of his death? To die with dignity? Are there religious and spiritual issues here? Is it spiritually wrong to seek assisted death; to put an end to your own suffering and the anguish of the living, and the caretakers?  Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations says that when we die, we lose only the present moment; the past has ceased to be, and the future has yet to come. And if the present is not worth prolonging, should we deny ourselves the right to let go? Difficult decisions we all must confront with -either for ourselves or for our loved ones. And we must pray that we have the courage – both to take the right call and to live with its consequences.