Why isn’t the euthanasia issue big in India?
Apart from lack of funds, India faces the crippling problems of overpopulation and illiteracy. What it all boils down to is a heath care system that is primitive compared to that of say, USA. So naturally, the issue of comatose patients or accident victims maintained on artificial perfusion and respiration is confined to big hospitals where such facilities are available. And even in these centres, the demand for use of these on healthier cases is too high to call for a debate on passive euthanasia. Western countries interpret this to mean that value of life is lesser in the developing nations. But the truth is that here death is accepted as a part of the life cycle. Although death of an individual may plunge the family into a financial or emotional crisis, people here find it easier to ‘let go’ as compared to the Westerners. Even our religious beliefs are such that we look for the soul to be reborn and consider only the body to be perishable. Also, for a predominantly poor populace, ma
