Self Determination and Individual Authonomy Verses State Interests –An Insight into The Comtemporary Developments

Abstract

“No life that breaths with human breath has ever truly longed for death”     - Alfred Tennyson

This perception is not true always. Mere presence doesn’t imply existence. Sir Ernest Hemingway, in his book “The old man and the sea” elucidates the idea that man can be destroyed but cannot be defeated .Life sans dignity is unjustifiable; the life that meets death with dignity is an embracing one .This necessitates to make right to die sans pain, sans suffering ,sans indignity a fundamental right thus making it fall within the purview of article 21 .In this backdrop ,the terminally sick individuals deprived of their chance of recovery even through advanced medical treatment to normal life claims to take the issues in their bests interests. Thus Legalizing Euthanasia has been the center point of debate over the world. Despite the irrefutable fact that the prima facie obligation to safeguard the life of its citizens is thrusted on the sovereign yet not by subjugating the dignity of the individual. In recent time there was a paradigm shift of judiciary from state interest; social morality to individualism; self-determination by judicial activism , thus making passive euthanasia lawfully permissible where the prime interest of the dignity of individual is given due respect .