Favouring a Dignified End to Human Life: Common Cause v. Union of India
| Published date | 01 July 2018 |
| Date | 01 July 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2277401718787956 |
| Subject Matter | Case Comment |
Case Comment
Favouring a Dignified End
to Human Life: Common
Cause v. Union of India
Niraj Kumar1
Akhilendra Pratap Singh2
Introduction
Nothing lives forever. But an important aspect linked closely to this unavoidable
natural phenomenon is the plight in which a living being approaches its end.
The same plight applies to human life too, but in a far more complex way. It is so
because human beings have reached a higher pedestal of evolution in comparison
to other forms of life on the planet enabling themselves to lead a ‘life beyond
animal existence’, and thereby, made way for the proposition that human life has
higher intrinsic value than other life forms.1 Moreover, advancements in medical
science and technology, aimed at improving the quality of human life, have not merely
upgraded the general human health by completely sweeping out certain deadliest
epidemics and finding treatment for others. They have also interfered with the
natural span of human life by finding ways to prolong it. Such reliance on scientific
medical procedures and treatments for artificial prolongation of life is generally
painful, (sic) undignified, and against individual autonomy as the suffering individual
fails to inhibit the physical as well as mental capacity to make a decision for or
against the medical aid. This has, in turn, led to the practice of euthanasia, which,
in Dworkin’s words means, ‘deliberately killing a person out of kindness’,2 and it
1 On the theoretical terrain, we do not adhere to the proposition that other forms of life on the planet
have intrinsically lesser value than human life. This also does not in any way suggests that other
forms of life are not subjects of rights as numerous contemporary legal regimes recognise as well as
affirm rights of living beings other than humans. However, ironically and interestingly, the academic
discourses have resisted from delving into this debate. For some reasons as to why there exists huge
indifference towards ‘species-narcissism’, particularly animals see, Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson,
‘Animal rights, multiculturalism, and the left’, (2004) 45(1) Journal of Social Philosophy 116.
2 Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom,
(Alfred A. Knopf Publications 1993) 3.
Journal of National
Law University Delhi
5(1) 109–115
2018 National Law
University Delhi
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2277401718787956
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/jnl
1
Assistant Professor of Law, National Law University Delhi, India.
2
PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science ‘Jean Monnet’, University of Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’,
Naples, Italy.
Corresponding author:
Niraj Kumar, National Law University Delhi, Dwarka, Sector 14, New Delhi-110078, India.
E-mail: niraj.ynsindri@gmail.com
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