Death is final. Think very carefully.

A Public Interest Litigation filed in front of the Supreme Court by NGO, Common Cause is asking that patients should be given the right to die, either passively by withholding life saving treatment or actively by injecting a lethal combination of drugs. Surely it is inhumane not to allow a person, suffering from excruciating pain from an incurable disease, the right to die with dignity. The knowledge of how to end human life already exists and those of us who have received anesthesia for operations have experience of complete freedom from any pain or distress while our tissues were being cut open. We have our pets put down to save them from distress then why should we not allow the same comfort to human beings whom we love. " If medical interventions fail and the process of death has commenced, why should the patient not have the right to die," asked Prashant Bhushan, counsel for Common Cause. If the patient has made a ' living will ', which is made when a person is healthy with full mental faculties, asking to be allowed to die if there is no hope of recovery then we should respect his wishes. But how do you know when the ' process of death ' has begun. Prof Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1963 and given 2 years to live. Since there is no treatment for motor neurone disease his ' process of death ' had begun. From 1979-2009 he held the Chair of Lucasian Professor at Cambridge which was held by Isaac Newton in 1663. Even though he is restricted to a wheelchair, needs help with breathing and uses a computer assisted voice machine to communicate he is still active in higher physics. Obviously such full time nursing care must be costing a fortune, which most people do not have. So if a man with the same disease requests help to die because he has no money should he be so helped? Should an old woman feeling guilty about being a burden on her children be assisted to die? As Oregon in the US is finding out the number of cases continues to rise once the law is passed. Prof Theo Boer of Netherlands was a supporter of assisted suicides but now believes he was " wrong - terribly wrong ". " I used to be a supporter of the Dutch law. But now, with 12 years experience, I take a different view," he said. " Whereas in the first few years after 2002 hardly any patients with psychiatric illness or dementia appear in reports, these numbers are now sharply on the rise." With property prices at stratospheric levels it would be natural for children to want a parent out of the way so that they could enjoy their inheritance. Doctors could be bribed. People should have the right to die in comfort and with dignity but the law has to be exact. Doctors should not profit.