Voluntary Cessation of Life - An Idea

It took a pretty, young Indian dentist’s life to reveal the ridiculousness of allowing religion to dictate terms to a modern, civilized society. Savita Halappanavar would still have been alive, had she stayed back in India or emigrated to some other place than nutty Ireland. Such gruesome incidents bring to focus the incompatibility of false beliefs which should have been exorcised long ago, clinging on to social fabric with such a tenacity characteristic to religion alone. What difference is there, we may ask, between Iran and Ireland? The West demonizes the former, heaping choicest abuses on her, for the inflexibility of its ruling elite's religious dogma. True, but what can we make of Ireland? Just because it is in Europe, won’t make it progressive as compared to Iran. If the clerics or mullahs don the mantle of a doctor and takes decisions on his behalf, as it so happened in Savita’s case, there is not an iota of gap which separates the supposedly ‘modern’ European nation with Bush’s infamous ‘Axis of Evil’. On the other hand, Iran has millennia of civilization behind its back while Ireland has nothing but potato peels, and that too, only for the last two centuries.

While on the subject, it is high time to ask whether a person should be allowed to die of his own volition. At present, the only option available to him is suicide, which is messy, illegal if you failed in the attempt and attaches stigma to the person’s memory and to his relatives and/or friends. It is incomprehensible why the society do not allow an individual to quietly retire from life, when he decides he can no longer endure? The argument most often raised is the exact same one which countries like Ireland raise in favour of ban on abortion, that life is precious, it is a gift from god, we should not extinguish it, blah, blah, blah…But, on sanguine analysis, we understand that while performing abortion, you are killing a human being against his/her wish, while if you allow a person to die, you have the conscience clear, in the full knowledge that he had a choice but preferred to end his own life.

So, I think the argument for Voluntary Cessation of Life, VCL in short (anything noteworthy must have an impressive title and an acronym!) is unassailable. In a nutshell, if you permit abortion to kill a child against its wish, you have no moral high ground not to allow a mentally healthy adult to die of his own choice. Sooner or later, society has to accede to this perfectly justifiable demand. When that time comes, I recommend the following mechanism to regulate its administration.

1. A person aspiring to end his life notifies a magistrate designated for the purpose through a lawyer. The magistrate checks whether he is of legal age as the first step.

2. The magistrate assigns the person to psychiatric counseling to determine whether he is mentally sound and asks to report back after a cooling off period (preferably a month) to see that he is determined.

3. Even after one month, if the person is desirous of ending his life, he approaches the magistrate again with the counseling report and proof that he has properly relinquished his duties and responsibilities in the case of a public servant.

4. The magistrate then issues a decree directing the administrator of a designated hospital to end the petitioner’s life by palliative sedation.

5. The person approaches the hospital and submits consent for donating his organs such as eyes, kidneys and liver to needy patients in a public-administered waiting list and his body for medical research. This should be mandatory.

6. The hospital authorities then put him to eternal sleep by palliative sedation, taking care that internal organs are not damaged.

Sounds cruel, right? But think about what’s happening now. What do we expect of soldiers marching on to the battle field? We hope and sometimes demand that they lay down their lives (a convenient euphemism for asking them to die) for the society’s sake, confronting the enemy. And, the expectations are not much different when coal workers are sent underground in mines having shafts running several kilometers long, which may cave in or may be flooded with water, turning the mine into a mass grave in a matter of minutes. Coal is a precious commodity essential to the well being of a society, so we don’t mind risking the lives of a few individuals. These two examples, which are not exclusive illustrations of such occurrences illuminatingly convey the idea that we are willing to let some of us die or be killed (to make it more precise) if that act is going to accrue some benefit to the society as a whole. Then why should we shy away from the demand that a person’s genuine wish to die should not be satisfied in a legal framework? Remember the advantages – his body and organs will be donated! One who thinks rationally does not find even a single point to be raised against it.

Some minor issues which may be postulated against the notion of voluntary death is the plight of that person’s dependents. True, after their breadwinner’s demise, they are left to fend for themselves, which might not be easy, always. If they are to become beneficiaries of the state’s welfare measures, the whole purpose of benefit to society is defeated. There is some reality here and it must be addressed. When the person who is trying to die appears before the court for the second and final time, the magistrate can demand that he furnish satisfactory proof of providing for his dependents in the event of his death. This measure will turn out to be a deterrent for people who want to die in order to escape financial problems. If you have no money to care for your dependents, you will not be allowed to die – as simple as that. This helps to filter out unwanted flotsam and end up with people who have done their duties well, are content with the life they lived and only want to end it in a smooth way, without bothering anyone. The satisfaction of knowing that their organs live on is an added sweetener.

We may conclude that it is time to think about voluntary cessation of life in a serious way. Life is a complex process with two definite points – the beginning and the end. The former is not under our control, so let the latter is!