IN QUEST OF QUIETUS

Euthanasia is a highly controversial form of medical intervention, for here physicians use their skill not to resuscitate
the ailing but to pre-pone their death. The topic remains contentious, for medical issues have here got entangled with ethicosociological
questions like the distinction between homicide and mercy-killing, sanctity of life and death, the validity of surrogate
decision about one’s life and the like. Suffering, albeit justified in the scriptures as conditioning of the soul for life divine, is a
challenge to medical scientists. While ‘kill if you fail to heal’ cannot be the choice of a doctor whose first duty is nonmaleficence,
beneficence also demands that a physician should not be indifferent to the suffering of a patient. We seek medical
intervention to alleviate suffering but, paradoxically enough, prefer medical inaction when it is a question of terminating
suffering or vegetative state of existence through administration of euthanasia. Since both life and death should have grace and
dignity, it would be irrational to neglect this option when curative and palliative treatments have failed to rein in agony. If
prescribing euthanasia involves violation of any ethical code, ethical transgression is to be preferred here, since ethics is to be
judged in the light of reason. With ample scriptural, literary and medical references the article attempts to evaluate euthanasia
from multiple perspectives as also to justify it on non-economic, non-eugenic grounds.