How can human rights be guaranteed through a death with dignity, and what are the necessary and legal mechanisms?

This article addresses the arguments for and against aid in dying and the need for aid in dying, and discusses human rights and freedoms. It emphasizes the need for careful legal mechanisms to enforce the right to die.

 

‘I have the right to destroy myself,’ said the famous French novelist François Sagan. In other words, it’s your freedom to kill yourself or make your life miserable, as long as you don’t harm others.
What are some examples of human freedom? Perhaps the most obvious is the right to live as a human being. The right to a decent life includes a minimum standard of living and socialization. All human beings are guaranteed human rights and have the right to live freely. People decide, choose, and design their own lives.
This is what advocates of the right to dignity claim. People have the freedom to choose their own lives. This means that every human being has the freedom to choose and shape their own death, just as they choose to live and die. It is up to each individual to decide how they want to die, in what way they want to die, and when they want to die. As long as the choice of death does not violate any of the protected aspects of human rights, humans have the right to unlimited freedom regarding their own deaths, as long as they do not harm others.
On the other hand, opponents of aid-in-dying fear that it will be used as a tool to violate human rights, rather than a means to protect them. Human life could be weighed against economic principles. In fact, most patients who want to withdraw from treatment cite the financial burden it would place on their families. Dignity issues can cause situations where people want to live but can’t, where money is more important than life.
We all find the meaning of life in happiness. To be human, to be free, and to be happy is the meaning of life. But for most seriously ill people who have no choice but to choose dignity, happiness is a luxury and a mockery. Every day they face pain, endure suffering, bear the burden of their families and the guilt of being a burden to themselves. For them, each day of life is not a blessing, but an extension of suffering. It is hard to call every day a moment of human life when you are helplessly waiting for your illness to heal and your death to come. Even basic necessities and freedoms are not fulfilled. If human rights mean the right to live as human beings, then these people are being violated over and over again just by being alive. The logic of the cause is that they shouldn’t die.
Death is an inevitable part of life for every human being born into this world. Like growing up and aging, death is a natural and expected part of life. The process varies from person to person, with death sometimes coming suddenly and unexpectedly in the form of an accident, or painfully in the form of a chronic illness or dying. Some will choose to endure the pain, others will choose to give up. But it should all be a free choice. If an individual is causing no harm to others, if they are in fact suffering so much that they are unable to choose their own end of life because of man-made laws, then it is a human rights violation.
Of course, if aid in dying is implemented only with the consent of family members or guardians, it is certainly open to abuse. However, the law’s job is to provide a way for a seriously ill person’s human rights not to be violated at the hands of others, not to prevent them from choosing to die. The law exists to protect and promote human rights, and as such, various legal mechanisms are needed to make the implementation of death with dignity more deliberate. For example, it should only be carried out with the direct consent of the seriously ill person. Although this would make the system less efficient, a human life is not worth the efficiency of the system. Even with the consent of the patient, dying with dignity can help many critically ill patients, of whom there are an average of 180,000 in hospitals each year. Another option is an advance directive. Advance directives are documents you fill out ahead of time to help your healthcare team make decisions about your care in the event that you are unable to make your own treatment decisions when you are nearing death. These documents can be promoted in many ways, not only at the time of death, but also as organ donor signatures, to mitigate the risk of dying with dignity by having them in place before an illness or accident. If there is evidence that a critically ill patient has previously made such a clear indication, it may be possible to honor the patient’s wishes, albeit imperfectly.
It is impossible not to consider the end of life. But just as every rule in the world is necessary with consideration of its side effects, there are reasons why aid in dying is necessary despite its side effects. Just as we give individuals the right to choose how to live well and pursue well-being, shouldn’t we also give them the freedom to choose how to die well and the ways and means to do so?