Life is our most cherished asset that has been bestowed upon us. We live now or never. We all want to live a fulfilling life in desirable conditions. This is how we humans are made, we always want to be fortunate.

But however, this rosy picture can be hampered by many unforeseen incidents while going through the to and fro of life. Certain ailments are so detrimental (such as bone morrow or blood cancer) that the quality of life becomes worse than death. Only under these circumstances the patients voluntarily and involuntarily see euthanasia as the only way out of terrible conditions. This is however an oversimplification of a much complicated issue.

Ethical/legal and social aspects to this issue have become the topic of debate more than the medical aspect. Ethically it can never be encouraged to take the life of a human being no matter what the medical conditions may be. No law around the world allows it.

The social dimension of this issue is very interesting but controversial. The key reason for highlighting this issue particularly in Europe is that most of the European countries are welfare states which offer healthcare to the public from the taxpayers money. Euthanasia is encouraged by many circles for certain reasons. Firstly, any patient with severe medical condition will obviously need expensive medical care, leading to consumption of more resources per head of these patients. If the disease is fatal, it is quite logical to support Euthanasia as to why spend too much on someone who is about to die? Secondly, in these countries, the proportion of aging population is very high. Spending too much to gain on the few weeks, months or a year of life is supposed to be not sensible. The result, voluntary euthanasia is encouraged.

The exercise of euthanasia in developing countries is a different story, where majority of the people are living below the cruel line of poverty and they literally live in a hell of life. Probably, they readily would prefer death over life. Increasing number of suicide incidents(bombing and otherwise) is sufficient to testify.

Euthanasia may be a medical or ethical issue by nature but to me, it is deeply an economic and social issue.