The Right to Die (Write the Wrongs - Episode 37)

The international human rights law protects and defends human rights which are premised on the fundamental right to life. However, a right to a dignified life does not seem to include a right to a dignified end. More controversial is whether doctors or anyone else has the right to make medically informed decisions about whether death would serve some terminally ill patients better than trying to keep them alive, and how such decisions will transform societies. All these debates were put to the foreground of American society in 1915, when doctor Haiselden allowed a deformed newborn to die.