Friday, 1 December 2006

Vending Vagina, Breast and Body


ab initio

The aged profession but today’s mushrooming traffic- ‘The Prostitution’- to which many interpretation, definition and demarcation has given by both the society and the state in the long course of history’s peregrination. The elucidation for the flesh trade varied but the practice went on safe and sound despite its interdiction on some countries as anyone couldn’t imagine a planet without prostitution; a world without carnal pleasures and passions. The sexual service is rampant now in the rural hamlets as well as in the urban metropolis in diverse forms making it as a ‘necessary evil’. Whatever, the flesh market has got its own precedent, present and posterity.

In the simplest fashion prostitution could be defined as ‘selling sex for money’. Encyclopedia defines prostitution as “the practice of engaging in relatively indiscriminate sexual activity in exchange for immediate payment in money or other valuables”. Legally, prostitution is the sale of sexual services. The service may consist of any sexual acts, including those which do not involve copulation. In other words: “sex may only be exchanged for sex, and sex has been redefined by law to mean: any non sexual act, anything other than sex of any value, is defined by law to be a consideration, which must be of exactly equal exchange of consideration other than sex, or the law may freely create artificial exchanges by interpretation”. Definitions were defined and redefined but the history bore witness how the profession proliferated right from the incipient of mans search for hedonism to his today’s emporium of sex-‘the brothels’.

By rummaging the rectos and versos of the history it’s apparent that the roots of the prostitution go back to ancient Greek times, Roman empires, Chou dynasties and Indian four ‘Varna’ systems. Probably the earliest form of the institution was temple, or religious, prostitution, which may have derived from communal, orgiastic fertility rites. Similar roots were seen in western and non-western societies. But apart from this there were various radicles and reasons which turned to be a cause in the budding stage of the sexual bartering.

In the western societies Solon (c.639-559 B.C.) established state brothels in Athens, the employees of which came from the lowest strata of society. Later, independent prostitutes were synchronized and taxed. The hetaerae were courtesans who provided various kinds of entertainment including music, poetry, and most notably, intellectually thought-provoking conversation and companionship. In ancient Rome, prostitutes were licensed by the state and taxed. Patrician woman were absolutely forbidden to engage in prostitution. Women who were neither patricians nor slaves, but relied on other means of income (actresses, musicians, dancers, and so on) were free to sell sexual services without registration or taxation. Side by side Male prostitutes were also numerous in Rome, but were not regulated by the state. Then afterwards, the early Christian church excommunicated (A.D. 305) all prostitutes on moral grounds. Nevertheless, prostitution remained a well-established institution, and it provided an important source of tax revenue to the imperial state. Thus, by late antiquity, the status of prostitution had been reversed from its temple origins: it was now specifically excluded from the sacred while it flourished in the profane world. Eventually, after the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire, women experienced a sharp decline in economic and political status as a consequence many went and sought the shadow of convent but many of them for providing fiscal support found relief under the shelter of Bawdy house. In the High Middle Ages, prostitution came under the protection and regulation of municipal government as a result female prostitution greatly expanded. The graph of prostitution soared high in modern Europe, while at the same time its practice was increasingly condemned. Beginning in the 19th century, the rise of capitalism and the liberal state brought increasing freedoms and economic rights to women as a result those who entered the urbanized work force often turned to occasional prostitution to supplement their incomes and many women became involved in regular prostitution either through forcible recruitment or as the only alternative to unemployment.

In non-western cultures, both secular and sacred prostitution co-existed. In India since classical Hindus times till the Muslim invasions of India (c. A.D. 1000) prostitution amplified. Since prostitution is forbidden by the Koran, there was an official pronouncement against it but the practices under Muslim rule did little to discourage it. As time passed, temple prostitution, in which girls are dedicated to a deity, has continued into the 20th century. In China, the earliest historical reference to prostitution dates from the Chou dynasty (c.650 BC), at which time it was already a well established institution. In China, more than elsewhere, the predominant form of prostitution has been in brothels of female slaves. After slavery was officially ended, the sale of wives, concubines, and daughters into prostitution remained a common practice. Since the Communist revolution, a campaign against prostitution along with efforts to provide women equal access to economic and political rights has greatly diminished the prevalence of prostitution in China. In Japan too there was prostitution in the well-known role of the Geisha which is of relatively recent origin, dating from the 18th century. This institution resembles that of the classical Greek hetaerae. The territorial classification of prostitution as Chinese or Japanese doesn’t matter, and what matter is the phenomenon i.e. prostitution is prostitution. 

Prior to European colonization, prostitution in the Western Hemisphere and Africa was probably limited to the religious realm. In what seems to be a world historical pattern, an upsurge in prostitution followed the effects of urbanization and wage labor. In Africa and Latin America this trend was heightened by industrial development, which greatly accelerated extensive displacement of people from traditional kinship ties. And the result- Women often supplemented their low wages with occasional prostitution, or, in the absence of employment, turned to prostitution as full-time work. 

In India, if looked closer and shoveled deeper, the nidus of prostitution can be traced on the emergence of the class society and the so called civilization when, for the first time, woman become subordinate to man. Lack of property rights, segregation from social production and division of labour along gender lines have made the woman powerless and totally dependent on the men from childhood to old age. In a class-divided society, economic and social power was naturally in the hands of the class that owned the chief means of production. The vast majority of the non-propertied classes had to live by selling their labour. Their body has been the only asset these non-owning classes possessed and it is only by pressing their body into service in exchange for a wage or remuneration in kind that their very physical survival could be ensured. Prostitution too arises from the compulsions in a class divided society to sell one’s body for the sake of one’s subsistence. Unlike men of the labouring classes women do not have the opportunities to take part in similar productive activities due to relations of patriarchy enforced by society. Thus women were rendered powerless and socially and economically vulnerable. Once the support of the men of her family is withdrawn, she becomes property less even if she belongs to the middle class, thereby leading to a life of insecurity and even poverty. This social and economic susceptibility of women arising out of gender inequalities in class societies played a significant role in sustaining prostitution. Those who have been forced into prostitution are generally the destitute, the deprived sections of the society, belonging to the lower castes, and the tribals. To The simple fact that hardly 1%of the property in the world is owned by women today shows the acute defenselessness and powerlessness of women. 

Within feudal society, prostitution was restricted, to be found for example around temples, institutionalised in the form of the devadasi system. The development of market forces transformed prostitution into a trade. Prostitution centre grew in port cities; around the colonies of migrant male workers; and around cantonment and military barracks. Natural calamities such as famines, floods, earthquakes and epidemics or social and political upheavals such as wars led to large-scale displacement of populations and to a phenomenal increase in the number of prostitutes as more and more uprooted, hapless women were left with no other options of livelihood. Thus the colonial era gave an impetus to the sex trade by punishing millions of women to sell their bodies in the areas where migrant male work force or military troops were located. But it is the development strategies pursued by the various governments of the Third World countries in the neo-colonial phase that had seen it grow by heaps and bounds. Big dams and mining and industrial projects, break up of subsistence economies by modern technology leading to pauperisation of entire communities, cyclones, floods and families resulting from indiscriminate deforestation and so on, had uprooted millions of people from their homes and a large number of women have been forced to seek a refuge in prostitution to economize their livelihood.

In contemporary, technologically developed societies, the vast majority of acts of prostitution are carried out by sporadic prostitutes who use it to supplement low incomes. Men and women who rely on prostitution as their key source of income typically have left their natal families in adolescence. Without education or work skills, and often prevented from employment by child labor laws, such escapee children resort to prostitution as their only means of endurance. Among others a considerable section of women are forced into prostitution due to patriarchal oppression and repression in the family and society, victims of rape by the male chauvinists, deception by lovers, fatalities in communal riots and atrocities by the police and the state’s armed forces and so on. The overwhelming majority of the prostitutes are there due to destitution, deprivation, displacement ostracism and deception; that many have been victims of sexual assault either at home or in work place or in the street; they quite a few of them have been bought from starving parents by unscrupulous pimps even before they reach their puberty, administered steroids like Benetradin to make malnourished children artificially plump and chubby just as they fatten cattle and chicken to yield more meat; that some of them are made into ‘servants of god’ (devadasi) against the law and the will. Apart from this due to massive population and development of the large sections of the population in the third world countries where those people who are left with no other options sell their vagina, breast and body voluntarily in order to eke out a living. It seemed for many that reaching teenage years and releasing menses are a sin for their life, but in actuality every menstrual twenty-eight day is the moment nearing the maternal opportunity. 

Now that the world has turned to be a global village and so has prostitution got its global texture due to globalization? Yes, the sex trade moves on swiftly in all ultra modern cities from Mumbai to Manila and from Tel Aviv to Texas camouflaged as massage parlours, pubs and hotels. Sex tourism and sex trade germinates and govern the global market world wide due to the fall out in policies of globalization and economic liberalization adopted by most countries of the world. The qualitative and quantitative jump in the sex hi-tech bazaar is because the sex trade is now organized on a global basis just as any other multinational enterprise. It has become a transnational industry where the principal players and beneficiaries involved in the intricate web includes nor just the doxy and the client, but an entire syndicate consisting of the pimps, the politicians and the local doctors. The major actors connected to the sex trade cross the confinements of their national and territorial boundaries and operate both legally as well as clandestinely and it is believed that the profits according to the organizations of sex-industry currently equal those flowing out of the global illegal trade in arms and narcotics. The other factor which makes sex trade qualitatively different today is that it has become a chosen development strategy by several Third World countries. The World Bank, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank and several other imperialist aid agencies have encouraged the development of tourism and entertainment industry in Third World countries with the aim of meeting their balance of payments and debit deficits. As a result, sex tourism and sex entertainment have developed at an amazing speed and have acquired national and international legitimacy under globalisation as never before. International capital through the vast media network at its disposal- the print and electronic media, the internet etc- mould the minds of the people living in an already patriarchal, male-dominated world in favour of commodification of the female body from the crudest to the most sophisticated of ways. Capitalism has transformed relations between human beings into callous cash relationships; it had commodified every aspect of human life including human body parts, female reproductive work and virtually every thing on the earth making clear that capitalism has no ethics other than amassing profits. 

The odyssey of prostitution Ab Initio of the history till today’s contemporary modernity is a blend of cool stories and callous non-fiction as well. The time now compels us to think of whether there is an ethics for the vending of stimulating sexual portions in order to host the culture of Epicureanism and sybaritism.

Is ‘sex for sale’ salutary?

Shakespeare has said that – “nothing is good or bad, thinking makes it so”. The questions like- is prostitution beneficial or bad, whether prostitution is needed or it be negated, could prostitution be termed an offence of offered legalization etc are all having relevance if with ratio decidendi one arrive at a concluding verdict. Prostitution till today was a necessity to the world revolving of erotic bagnio, by concupiscent hoi polloi and for Arcadian fleshpots. There might be skeptics who say that prostitution should be prohibited. Never mind, the subsequent paragraphs are jam-packed with the dialectics and dynamics bolstering in favour of the prostitution; raising the voice for the want of the oldest profession and lending a helping hand to the protagonists of prostitution- ‘The Fille de joie’. 

People in a free society have the right to work in their chosen profession, and to do with their own bodies as they so choose. Article 19(g) of the Indian Constitution accouter with the right to profession. In a free democratic setup like India, all the persons above eighteen years have the right to engage in consensual adult sexual contact. Prostitution is a personal choice and fills a vital role in our society by addressing the sexual and emotional needs of the men and women, and by providing high paying employment options to women and men who wish to provide sexual services. After all, prostitution provides a better alternative to starving or stealing. Am I right?

Most of the trollops believe that making money from sex is not selling a part of their body which is in no way different from selling our brains or physical labour. If society says that bawds are bartering their body parts or selling their torso in the market of red-light district, then it’s moreover same what the IITians , B.Tech, M.B.A. and other graduates do, who sell their brain and brilliance for M.N.C.’s and other corporate under the climate of brain drain. There seems no difference between a mason who sells his physical labour by standing on the scaffoldings and keeping brick on brick to construct a building and a prostitute who on the cuisine couch or cot sell her orifice, bosoms and pudenda to build pleasure on her clients. Labour is labour whether it be done by extracting it from ones brain, body or booms.

Whatever we do it’s for the safety and security. Courtesans do the same thing. They make the world safer for women and healthy for normal man. Rather than encourage rape, or sexual harassment from sexually frustrated men, prostitutes are there for people who have a strong sex drive and cannot find anyone to have sex with or who enjoy sexual variety. For the socially inept man, they cope with all those with confused and repressed sexuality, removing the risk of attack they cause to other women. But most clients are just ordinary men, your neighbours, your child’s teacher, your lawyer or politicians. Some of us are well adjusted normal men who enjoy physical intimacy with a variety of drinks and damsels and it is physically and emotionally healthy for otherwise healthy men. 

Whores are experts who offer high quality sex. If there was not such a negative stigma, most of us would have wanted to visit prostitutes for erotic inspiration and self indulgence. They provide the chance for new experiences without entering a new relationship which many people find of enormous value at certain stages of their lives. In some cultures, it is customary for all young men to learn about sex from the local prostitutes before they have sex with other women. Altogether it can be said that the institution and inspiration of prostitution is just like a University where you get sex education from the prostitutes as teachers. Therefore prostitution must be respected for its beneficial service for the society by the service of sexual entertainment and sex enlightenment. 

Cash and dash is not the only texture of the bordello and belly dancers. Prostitutes offer many services often far more than just sex. The nomenclatures of prostitutes vary from whore to therapist; slut to Tantric teacher; hostess to surrogate. Each have their own style but when you hark to what they actually do, most provide appropriately the same range of services. They act as listeners (to every one in pain, including sufferers of child sexual abuse), pacifiers, substitute mothers, sisters and brothers. Their services range from enacting fantasies to electrifying orgies. Think, how could all these be harming the tranquility of the society?

The job of vending vagina, breast and body parts for fucking, sucking and licking is a satisfying job. The fact is that a growing number of women are switching to work in sex rather than in other jobs because they find it gives them more freedom and job satisfaction. You chose your hours, you make more money per hour than most of your friends and you spend your time giving pleasure and often receiving it too. Prostitutes provide fun by offering a service of pleasure forcing rest of the worldly pains and predicaments of the clients under the drugget of forgetfulness. In countries where sex parties and orgies with several prostitutes are there, people and clients enjoy visiting for light hearted yet get intensely erotic experience, which may be very difficult to find elsewhere. 

Feminist assert that the world is dominated by masculinity and male chauvinism making the concept of emancipation of women a far factuality. The traffic of copulation for currency enables many women to liberate themselves. Prostitution paves a cosmos where the women birds could aviate as they wish from the gyves of man and his machismo. Females by pursuing the profession in prostitution could outline their own mind's eye, could erect their own podium of assertion, could free themselves from the patriarchal stranglehold and sketch their own demarcation of choice and freedom.  

Sex work could be empowering. People gain personal strength from selling their bodies because their clients worship and admire them, they have as much sex as they want and defy traditional mores and roles imposed on them. Often prostitutes are extremely healthy, playful, creative, adventurous and independent women. From this it’s obvious that whores have their own ways of empowered living. 

Prostitution is never a menace rather it’s a medicine and acts as a therapeutics for the society soaked in multi macro and micro dilemmas. Prostitution is good for mental health. Comforting sex without ties is excellent for mental health, soothing the nervous system, and helping the client improve their sense of well being. People with social disabilities such as stammers can be helpful to overcome their problems by loving attention and uncovering anxieties. People who have been sexually abused as children often need a lot of patient body work to overcome sexual difficulties and prostitutes do the job excellently. 

One of the chief battle cries of the modern feminists is that a woman has a right to do with her body as she pleases. Yes, that’s true and should be emphasized in this context. Body parts of a woman, be it her face, womb, thighs, lips, breast or buttocks, its up to her to do what ever she wishes. If she has the obligation to save her body parts from any vulnerability, then she too has the right to sell her body parts. In this matter no one can question her. In this way, feminism too supports the soliciting for selling sex.

As long as laws are there prohibiting prostitution, so long the right to privacy of the prostitutes gets violated. The bizarre raids by the police in the brothels, truly speaking, breach the seclusion of any strumpet. Therefore the trafficking laws banning prostitution must be first altered or if possible be banned. 

In most parts of the world sex work benefit to the cultures. Historical studies have shown that the more repressive a culture sexually the more violent it is. Porn along with the prostitution reduces sex crimes and it’s salutary to a society. Many studies have made related to this in various countries and data shows that sex crimes against women and against children goes down as the availability of erotica goes up. The crime rate is low in the countries where prostitution is legalized comparing to those countries banned the institution of prostitution where the offences related to the sex is high.

I believe that by reading above systematized statements, you may be now turned a staunch supporter of prostitution. Isn’t it?

Legalizing the lookout

Prostitution has been in existence for millennia, going back to the Byzantine, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian Empires. Ironically, the ancient religions of those eras dealt with the needs of the group and consequently developed protocols for dealing with sexual relations that have propagated throughout time to the modern era. As a result, prostitution is not about to disappear anytime soon. 

Right from the origin of this sex institution, there has been different strata of prostitutes. Within the top layer rests discrete call-girls for the affluent. The middle layer holds bordello-dwelling prostitutes or others in less subtle environments such as strip clubs and massage parlors that offer backroom services. Streetwalkers (harlots, hookers, nightwalkers) occupy the lowest layer. The lowest layer prostitutes are plagued with the most problems. It is the group that usually remains perpetually vulnerable. They work in conditions that make them prone to violence due to a lack of supervision. And, there are healthcare risks due to unsafe sexual contact with unscreened clients. These lower strata prostitutes are the women who require help since they cannot afford decent medical services and are either lured into the industry by drugs or they turn to narcotics as a means to cope within their hellish lives. It’s the bottom strata prostitutes remain always trapped, but the upper two-third are far less constrained as they are able to carefully parlay their gains into real estate or financial investments even within localities having laws against prostitution. They can choose to leave prostitution for other careers or simply retire or continue to make a fiscally respectful living from it. The only salvage for the underneath layer would be the legalization of the lookout. 

Vesya Anyay Mukti Parishad (Kolkata) which is an association of prostitutes that had come into existence during the latter half of the 90’s, is among the most vocal proponents of legalisation. The following are a few of its arguments- “Prostitution is a way of life like any other. It isn’t created for the benefit of the men rather it is primarily for the women who live off it. Women in prostitution make money out of the sex and are the bread winners of their families”; "We believe that we are more empowered than most women within male-dominated patriarchal structure. The relationships we share with the men from our families are more honest and equal because the veil of double standards is not necessary”; "Economic independence from men is a reality that we enjoy with pride and dignity. Brothel owners, goons, the police and the self-appointed crusaders of morality in society harass us, try to curb our independence and are forever trying to douse our spirit”. These voices are not mere voice and their upheaval is not mere upheaval. Rather it’s the voice of assertion, an upheaval for recognition and never having a conception for genuflection. By presenting a legal insignia or indulgence to this shouting sector, there could be umpteen benefits for them as well as for the public. The state by giving green light to the Red-light district would free putas from the vexation of the Don Juan pimps, demonizing by the draconian police and the use, abuse and misuse done by the Casanova clients. If there is no legalisation prostitutes have to undergo the harassment occurring underground which remain unnoticed. Cannot the campanile of law toll for them? The silence of law is the death toll for the suffering sector in the Sex Wall Street. 

Sex industry by legalisation should be recognized as an economic sector. Sex work should be considered as any other work. Basically, Legalisation means position of regulation by the State to ensure the continuation and perpetuation of prostitution. It implies that the prostitutes have to pay taxes and have so many other obligations towards the state. The state on the other hand is also expected to guarantee the rights of the prostitutes. As it goes on, the benefits of legalized prostitution also includes allowing law enforcement agencies to respond to more important crimes, freeing justice systems from nuisance cases, helping women who are trapped by prostitution, and preventing teens from being ensnared into prostitution without their consent. 

The interest of the state in permitting legalisation should not be confined to the rights of the prostitutes but also to check the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The status quo is a poor health-safety plan. With sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like syphilis, gonorrhea, Chlamydia and herpes, prostitutes must be monitored to prevent the spread of these afflictions. Cancroid, a STD typically found in third world nations, which makes ulcers in the vagina that assist with the spread of HIV / AIDS, could be prevented from dispersal by a thorough scrutinizing. Therefore, by legalisation it would turn mandatory for the women to undergo medical check-ups regularly or face imprisonment. 

Clandestinely many people work in massage parlors, escort services, strip bars and modeling agencies or still work corners as traditional streetwalkers. There are legitimate parlors, dating services, bars and agencies but of the hundreds that exist within newspaper classified advertisements and telephone directories, there are a large number that provide sexual services unknown and unnoticed. A routine search through Goggle’s Internet news engine for 'prostitution' routinely reveals connections between prostitution and these falsetto agencies. If we allow prostitution to remain hidden from view and basically invisible to the law as it is today, we allow a number of teens to be swept up into prostitution every year. When adult women decide to exchange money for sex, it is a personal choice open to them under the philosophy of a free, democratic society. When troubled minors who do not yet have the social survival skills decide to prostitute, they are often manipulated by opportunists who exploit these teens, typically leading to horrific ends. Legalizing prostitution will help prevent these instances through regulation.

Legalisation by the state would involve heavy regulation of prostitution through a whole host of zoning and licensing laws. Zoning segregates the prostitutes into a separate locality and their civil liberties are restricted outside the specified zone. Along with this, issuing of licenses, registration and disbursement of health cards to the women will bring good results and make the alleys of prostitute a better place for them as well as for other people who tour such streets. In Singapore, sex for money is open in commonplace. Denmark women can be legal prostitutes so long as it is not their sole means of income. Canada, France and Mexico allow it. Prostitutes must be contained within brothels in the Netherlands, unlike within England and Wales where prostitution is limited to individual providers. Israel, the historical stage for the Bible, allows, it, too where the city like Tel Aviv is there, known as the prostitution capital of the world. Even International Labour Organization (ILO) has called for the economic recognition of prostitutes as legitimate work in its controversial report of 1998. Enlightened people within civilized societies pride themselves on the contributions made to others who are less fortunate. Low strata prostitutes clearly rest within the domain of the less fortunate, but the countries that cling to anti-prostitution laws choose to abandon these people and thereby negatively affect the crime, health, and general safety of those nations. One must reconsider whether or not those countries are truly civilized. In this sense, is then India a truly civilized nation with a background of oldest civilization?

The orgasm

The commercial sex industry includes street prostitution, massage brothels, escort services, outcall services, strip clubs, lap dancing, phone sex, adult and child pornography, video and internet pornography, and prostitution tourism. Most women who are in prostitution for longer than a few months drift among these various permutations of the commercial sex industry. Life goes on, as it has come till today since millennia. Every one has to live under the sun including the prostitutes to whom a negative notion and an immoral stature have created by the society consisting of hollow hypocrites and bourgeoisie with braggadocio. Let them too live.

Prostitution was very common in biblical times. Many wives and concubines were acceptable as "common" prostitutes. For Christians or Jews there is clearly nothing wrong to see "common" prostitutes. The only negative reference in the Bible is to the sex goddess prostitutes in the Temples worshiping the fertility gods. Many times common prostitutes are mentioned in the bible with no negative inference. Even Judah saw nothing wrong in hiring a prostitute for the night. In New Testament times, there also was nothing said about prostitution being wrong and in fact Jesus makes the point that harlots (zonah in Hebrew) who believed John the Baptist will enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 21:31-32). Today on the same soil from Hamasger Street to Shozino Street, prostitution flourishes making Israel the notable spot on the international map of prostitution. Jesus Christ displayed a perfect balance between compassion and judgment. He did not pretend that the woman was innocent. He did not get sidetracked into debate about the man's guilt or the unfairness of the woman alone being brought for judgment. He loved her. He forgave her. Now it’s high time to change the mindset of the world which thinks that prostitution is a stigma. Remember that all men in this world are like Caesar craving for power and pleasure and whole women just like the feelings of Cleopatra’s. I think you got it.

Friday, 1 September 2006

Euthansia, Suicide and Theology


(This essay was originally written for an All India Essay Competition)

Introduction

            Who decides when a life no longer has value? Doctors? Patients? Spouses? Parents? Insurance companies? What if there are differences of opinion? Are doctors ever motivated by cost factors? Are patients sometimes in an emotional state that makes good judgment unlikely? Are parents ever motivated by unreasonable hope, spouses by an understandable need to move on? Might doctors ever slant the truth to make families comfortable with end-of-life decisions? Might insurance companies possess a narrower view of what “value” means than most of us would be comfortable with? These questions affect not only end-of-life issues, but also quality-of-life issues for persons with disabilities. They are therefore of grave interest to ponder, practice and to propagate.

            Although the term euthanasia originally meant a good happy death, it has become synonymous with “mercy killing”. The judgment is made that an individual person is better off dead than alive and that a benefit is conferred upon the person by relieving him of a life that has become an intolerable burden[1]. Active euthanasia refers to mercy killing when someone does something precisely in order to bring death about. Such active euthanasia can be voluntary, non-voluntary, or involuntary. It is voluntary if death is brought about only after securing the informed consent of the person whom is to be mercifully killed to being so killed. It is non-voluntary if such free and informed consent has not been given because of the individual’s inability to give such consent[2]. In addition, passive euthanasia refers to mercy killing achieved not by someone’s doing something in order to bring death about but by someone’s not doing something precisely as a mean of achieving the same effect. Passive euthanasia is needed a form of mercy killing and is utterly different, both morally and legally, from legitimate decisions to forgo or withhold treatments, even if one foresees that by doing so death will come about[3].

            The history bore witness how the concept of euthanasia has traversed in its process of evolution. Right from 400 B.C.’s Hippocratic Oath[4] testifying the antagonism towards euthanasia to October of 1939 when the Dictator who fed on hate and not compassion, the Hitler’s order of widespread “mercy killing” codenamed “Aktion T 4” of the sick and disabled, the saga about the euthanasia was in its best and worst. “From the Soviet gulag to the Nazi concentric camps and the killing fields of Cambodia, history teaches that granting the state legal authority to kill innocent individuals has dreadful consequences”[5]. Today’s stories turn to be tomorrow’s history and the stories about euthanasia and suicide will be on its making in the days to come.

            Words seem inadequate to elucidate the ghastly experience faced by the countless oldest, littlest and lowest people due to the mercy killing. The truth about the odyssey is stunning. Perhaps that is the reason why a very few number of countries have legalized euthanasia and suicide by having a mercy towards the greater cause of humanity overtaking the individual “Right to Die”.
                   
Fulmination against legalisation of euthanasia

            “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect”.
– Hippocrates, Father of Medicine, c. 460-377 B.C.

            Since the beginning of history, society assigned the task of saving life to physicians. If killing people was required, that task was given to executioners. How these two opposite roles became confused? How killing and healing were mixed? Moreover, how physician’s loyalty was no longer to the individual patient, but to “society” or the State? Once the Nazis took over, medical graduates no longer took the Hippocratic Oath, but an oath to the health of the state. Most American medical graduates also no longer take the Hippocratic Oath, but a variety of other oaths, including one that refers to “humanity” but mentions neither abortion nor euthanasia[6]. How did all this happen? The vociferous fulmination against all these could be evident from the succeeding paragraphs.

            Traditional medical ethical codes have never sanctioned euthanasia, even on request for compassionate motives. The Hippocratic Oath never supported it. The International Code of Medical Ethics[7] as originally adopted by the World Medical Association in 1949 never holds it up. The World Medical Association[8] confirmed that assisted suicide, like euthanasia, is unethical and must be condemned by the medical profession. Swift, in his early 19th century treatise on the laws of Connecticut, stated, “If one counsels another to commit suicide, and the other by reason of the advice kills himself, the advisor is guilty of murder as principal”[9]. “Now if the murder of one’s self is felony, the accessory is equally guilty as if he had aided and abetted in the murder.”[10] The right to life and to personal security is not only sacred in the estimation of the common law, but it is inalienable. There is no cell of this world, which says that euthanasia is good.

            A patient with a terminal illness is vulnerable. He lacks the knowledge to alleviate his own symptoms, may be suffering from fear about the future and anxiety about the effects his illness on others. It is difficult for him to be objective about his own situation[11]. “The terminally ill are a class of persons who need protection from family, social, and economic pressures, and who are often particularly vulnerable to such pressures because of chronic pain, depression, and the effects of medication”[12]. In succinct, they may feel great pressure to request euthanasia ‘freely and voluntarily’.

            Medical research is essential if medicine is to advance further. When the focus changes from curing the condition to killing the individual with the condition, this whole process is threatened[13]. A conspicuous danger of legalizing euthanasia is that Medicine would be robbed of the incentive to discover genuinely compassionate solutions to the disease and difficulties of patients. The kind of humane impulses, which have sustained the development of hospice medicine and care, would be undermined, because too many would think euthanasia a cheaper and less demanding solution[14]. Rather than being employed to care and console, funds are being diverted to fuel the strategy of ‘search and destroy’ accelerating the decline of our health care system.

            Rights need protection, but must be balanced against responsibilities and restrictions if we are to be truly free. We are not free to do things, which limit or violate the reasonable freedoms of others. No man is an island. No person makes the decision to end his or her life in isolation[15]. Others are affected. Friends and relatives left behind, and the healthcare staff involved in the decision-making process include in that. Personal autonomy is never absolute and one cannot simply consent to be killed.

            By legislation, voluntary euthanasia gives too much power to doctors. If a doctor confidently suggests a certain course of action, it can be very difficult for a patient to resist. Diagnoses may be mistaken[16]. The doctor may be unaware of recently been developed medicines, may not be up-to-date in symptom control, may misguide the Prognoses. Doctors are humans and subject to temptations, affecting their own decision-making, consciously or unconsciously. The ultimate product of legalization will be the manufacturing of the dangerous draconian doctors.

            There is significant danger that many people would take this “escape” due to external pressure. For example, elderly individuals who do not want to be a financial or caretaking burden on their families might choose assisted death. In Oregon’s third year report, “A startling 63% of [reported cases] cited fear of being a ‘burden on family, friends or caregivers’ as a reason for their suicide”[17].

            “Society always is attempting to make the physician into a killer to kill the defective child at birth; to leave the sleeping pills beside the bed of the cancer patient… It is the duty of society to protect the physicians from such requests”[18]. We all have a crucial role to play with our full potential.

You matter because you are you.
You matter to the last moment of your life,
And we will do all we can,
Not only to help you die peacefully,
But also to live until you die”.
– Dame Cicely Saunders,
Founder of Hospice.

Voice and noise in favour

Methods and methodologies of taking a persons life differ from a doctor to doctor but the reason why the doctors apply those techniques could be obvious from the below crammed powerful words in favour of the euthanasia and suicide.

            In an ethical binocular if we look, we could see that some people wish to die because they are suffering from clinical depression. In an age when total medical funding is restricted and being continually reduced, is it ethical to engage in extremely expensive treatment of terminally ill people in order to extend their lives by a few weeks, if it is against their will? Drugs used in assisted suicide cost only about $40, but that it could take $40,000 to treat a patient properly so that they don’t want the “choice” of assisted suicide[19]. The money used in this way is not available for pre-natal care, infant care, etc. where it would save lives, and significantly improve the long-term quality of life for others. Is it not this a significant contention to be focused?

            Through a microscopic view, it is evident that in voluntary euthanasia the person to be killed mercifully wishes to be killed and has freely given informed consent to being killed. Hence, by doing this one is not acting unjustly; rather, one is respecting his wishes. Moreover, the person’s desire to be killed is reasonable in view of the pain and/ or suffering and/ or humiliation he is experiencing; at times, others are suffering terribly too, psychologically or economically or both. Everyone – whether it be a person with a life-threatening illness or a chronic condition – has the right to pain relief. With modern advances in pain control, no patient should ever be in excruciating pain. Relief from the pain is ones right and why there is a ruckess about this.

            Should people be forced to stay alive? No. in addition, neither the law nor medical ethics requires that “everything be done” to keep a person alive. There are no laws, medical associations, church denominations, or right-to-life groups who insist that unnecessary, heroic, or truly futile treatments be provided to prolong life and all recognize the right of competent patients to refuse medical treatment[20]. Insistence, against the patient’s wishes, that death be postponed by every means available is contrary to law and practice. It would also be cruel and inhumane. There comes a time when all efforts should be placed on making the patient’s remaining time comfortable. Then, all interventions should be directed to alleviating pain and other symptoms as well as to the provision of emotional and spiritual support for both the patient and the patient’s loved ones. The only salvation is death.

            There is a significant and growing percentage of agnostics, atheists, humanists, secularists, non-Christians and liberal Christians who argue: Each person has autonomy over their own life. Persons whose quality of life is non existent should have the right to decide to commit suicide, and to seek assistance if necessary[21]. Even Buddha himself showed tolerance of suicide by monks and some Hindus say that by helping to end a painful life a person is performing a good deed and so fulfilling their moral obligations.

            By considering all these, letting a person to die who seeks for it seems merciful, reasonable and responsible.

Theological dialectics and discourse

            Religions are for social control and different religions have different opinions. Nevertheless, there is a common thread touching through all the religions in its variety and vibrancy, which reverberates a common echo against euthanasia.

            Most Hindus would say that a doctor should not accept a patient’s request for euthanasia since this will cause the soul and body to be separated at an unnatural time. The result will damage the karma of both doctor and patient. By helping to end a life, a person is disturbing the timing of the cycle of death and rebirth. Other Hindus believe that euthanasia cannot be allowed because it breaches the teaching of ahimsa. However, prayopavesa, or fasting to death, is an acceptable way for a Hindu to end their life in certain circumstances, which is very different from what most people mean by suicide. It is non-violent, uses natural means and is a gradual process. It is associated with feelings of serenity and is a gradual process. It is associated with feelings of serenity and is only for people who are fulfilled, who have no desire or ambition left, and no responsibilities remaining in this life. In total, it is really only suitable for elderly ascetics[22]. Christians are mostly against euthanasia. The arguments are usually based on the beliefs that life from God, and that “each individual is its steward”[23]. Some churches also emphasize that birth and death are part of the life process, which God has created, so we should respect them. Therefore, no human being has the authority to take the life of any innocent person, even if that person wants to die. Many churches believe that the period just before death is a profoundly spiritual time. They think it is wrong to interfere with the process of dying, as this would interrupt the process of the spirit moving towards God. They never consider that human dignity and value are measured by mobility, intelligence, or any achievements in life. Therefore, it would be wrong to treat their lives as worthless and to conclude that they ‘would be better off dead’. Patients who are old or sick, and who are near the end of earthly life have the same value as any other human being. “A man, even if seriously sick or prevented in the exercise of its higher functions, is and will be always a man… [he] will never become a ‘vegetable’ or an ‘animal’”, the Pope said. “The intrinsic value and personal dignity of every human being does not change depending on their circumstances”[24].

            Muslims are too against euthanasia. They believe that all human life is sacred because Allah gives it. “Do not take life, which Allah made sacred, other than in the course of justice”[25]. “If anyone kills a person – unless it be for murder or spreading mischief in the land – it would be if he killed the whole people”[26]. Allah decides how long each of us will live. “When their time comes they cannot delay it for a single hour nor can they bring it forward by a single hour”[27]. And no person can ever die except by Allah’s leave and at an appointed term”[28].

            “The message of Judaism is that one must struggle until the last breath of life. Until the last moment, one has to live and rejoice and give thanks to the Creator”[29]. Jewish law and tradition regard human life as sacred, and say that it is wrong for anyone to shorten a human life. This is because our lives are not ours to dispose of as feel like all life is of infinite value, regardless of its duration or quality, because all human beings are made in the image of God. “The value of human life is infinite and beyond measure, so that any part of life – even if only an hour or a second – is of precisely the same worth as seventy years of it, just as any fraction of infinity, being indivisible, remains infinite”[30].

            Most Buddhists like other religions are against involuntary euthanasia. Their position on voluntary euthanasia is less clear. Buddhism places great stress on non-harm, and on avoiding the ending of life. Certain codes of Buddhist monastic law explicitly forbid it. Buddhist regards death as a transition. The deceased person will be reborn to a new life, whose quality will be the result of their karma. Therefore, one should not kill anyone in his or her life. Apart from this, there is Japanese samurai tradition. The samurai ritual of seppuku came very close to euthanasia indeed. In line with Buddhist thinking, the seppuku ritual laid great emphasis on the suicide having a peaceful mind during the action.

Conclusion

A man is not a thing, that is to say, something, which can be used merely as means, but in all his actions, be always considered as an end in himself[31]. Dying patients basic human rights are seen to be violated when they lack the knowledge and power to make decisions, which, in turn, diminishes dignity. Patients have the right to know their conditions, to choose or to reject the treatment regimen, to choose or to reject attempts to prolong their life, and to decide fully as to the disposal of their remains. We need to recognize that requests for voluntary euthanasia are extremely rare in situations where the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of terminally ill patients are properly met. As the symptoms, which prompt the request for highest priority must be to ensure that top quality terminal care is readily available.

            As is the case with any ending – whether it is music resolutions, the denouements of literature and drama, conclusion sections of research papers, the logic of deserts, or the completion of a human life – failure to culminate “correctly” jeopardizes the overall meaningfulness of the social product. Individuals “in exit” no longer need to conform neither to trivialities of mass culture nor to the norms of the status hierarchy. From this perspective, the problem of our times is the apparent lack of cultural consensus over exactly how endings – whether from work, the family, or from life itself – should be ideally conducted. As Martin Luther King said on the eve of his assassination that no one is truly free to live until one is free to die.



[1] “The Final Act: Public Policy on Euthanasia & Asst. Suicide”, By William E. May.
[2] For e.g., infants, persons in a comatose condition etc.                                           
[3] “The Final Act: Public Policy on Euthanasia & Asst. Suicide”, By William E. May.
[4] By Greek physician Hippocrates.
[5] Pete Du Pont, former Delaware Governor.
[6] “Now Choose Life” – David C. Stolinsky, MD.
[7] The International Code of Medical Ethics adopted by 3rd World Medical Assembly, London, England, October 1949.
[8] Handbook of Declaration, WMA, 1992, France.
[9] Z. Swift –“A Digest of the State of Connecticut” 270 (1823)
[10] Quoting Chief Justice Parker’s charge to the jury in Commonwealth V. Bowen, 13 Mass. 356 (1816).
[11] “Twelve Reasons Why Euthanasia Should not be Legalised” – Peters Saunders
[12] From the State of Alaska’s arguments that assisted suicide is dangerous (Sampson et al. V. State of Alaska, 09/21/2001).
[13] “Twelve Reasons Why Euthanasia Should not be Legalised” – Peters Saunders
[14] “The Final Act: Public Policy on Euthanasia & Asst. Suicide”, By William E. May.
[15] “Twelve Reasons Why Euthanasia Should not be Legalised” – Peters Saunders
[16] Rees, W et al (1987) ‘Patients with Terminal Cancer’ who have neither terminal illness nor cancer. BMJ 295:318-9.
[17] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2001.
[18] Margret Mead, anthropologist (quoted in Maurice Levine ‘Psychiatry and Ethics’, George Brazillers Publishers, New York, 1972, Page 325).
[19] Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.
[20] Hospitals/Nursing Home Patients Bill of Rights.
[21] Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide: Further Information, Author: B. A. Robinson.
[22] Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, a Hindu leader born in California, took his own life by prayopavesa in November 2001.
[23] Essays: Euthanasia, Synod of the Great Lakes, Reformed Church in America, at: http: // www.euthanasia.com/.
[24] Pope John Paul II, 2004.
[25] (Quran 17.33)
[26] (Quran 5.32)
[27] (Quran 16.61)
[28] (Quran 3.145)
[29] Dr. Rachamim Melamed-Cohen, Jewsweek, March, 2002.
[30] Lord Jakobovits, former UK Chief Rabbi.
[31] Immanuel Kant’s Fundamental Principles of The Metaphysics of Morals as translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abott.