Euthanasia and Ethics: Raising Some Critical Bio-Ethical Issues

EUTHANASIA AND ETHICS: RAISING SOME CRITICAL
BIO-ETHICAL ISSUES
BY

J. CHIDOZIE CHUKWUOKOLO
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
EBONYI STATE UNIVERSITY ABAKALIKI
INTRODUCTION
The supremacy of life is not controvertible amongst various cultures and religions of the world. For the Judeo-Christian culture, life is sacred, of God and must never be taken, hence the injunction in the Decalogue, “thou shall not murder”. The Judeo-Christian scripture also avers that “Your body is a temple of the holy spirit”. It does not end at this point, it goes ahead to show that man cannot choose when to die: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted”.1
In the same token, Islam conceives life as not only sacred but also created by Allah and held in thrust for Him. This is variously noted in the Qur’an thus” “Do not take life which God has made sacred except in the course of justice”2   The holy Qur’an elsewhere equates the saving of a life with that of all mankind:   “Anyone who saved a life, it is as if he has saved the life of all mankind”3
The vedic teachings equally rates life supreme. It does not only hold life sacred but traces man’s problems on earth as resulting from the web of Karmic binding arising from the shedding of blood (animals inclusive). The Bhagavad – Gita has this to say:
Everyone must engage in some sort of activity in this material world. But actions can either bind one to this world or liberate one from it. By acting for the pleasure of the supreme4, without selfish motives, one can be liberated from the law of Karma (action and Reaction) and attain transcendental knowledge of the self and the supreme.5
For the Igbos, the supremacy and sanctity of life could be derived from sanctions given to any violator of the right to life. For instance, anybody that commits murder or manslaughter is banished for seven years in which...