Jack Kevorkian, the American physician of Armenian origin who became known as "Dr Death"Â, was released from prison recently after eight years.
Kevorkian had been sentenced to 25 years for assisting terminally ill people to die, a practice known as euthanasia. An ardent supporter of euthanasia and a patient's "right to die"Â, Kevorkian started to put his convictions into practice in the 1990s.
He claimed to have helped 130 people to die using his "mercy machine"Â, a device delivering lethal injections to terminally ill patients. Kevorkian was detained in 1999 after the death by injection of one patient was broadcast on television.
Kevorkian was released from prison in Michigan in June after an appeal based on his own failing health. Neither his imprisonment nor his release have resolved the controversy surrounding euthanasia: does a person with an incurable disease have the right to end his or her life?
Kevorkian believed that a person does. On release, the doctor said that he did not retract his view that people have the right to die in dignity and without pain, but said that he would no longer assist them.
Euthanasia is an issue that divides not only doctors but also government officials, lawyers and human rights activists, who find it hard to draw the line between the right of a person to end his life and murder, even at the request of a patient.
Jack Kevorkian or Doctor Death - sentenced to 25, released in 8"¦
Among Armenian doctors there are also some defenders of euthanasia; however they admit that the subject is far from being discussed at official level. Officials from Armenia's Ministry of Health said there had been no consideration of this issue and they had received no approaches on it from doctors.
Four years ago, Armenia's medical community rejected an initiative to adopt a law on transplantation, put forward by urologist Ara Babloyan and ophthalmologist Alexander Malayan.
As many doctors say, if a society is not ready to accept the concept of transplantation then it will reject the idea of euthanasia as well.
Smbat Jamalyan, chief of cardiology-arhythmology group at the Erebouni hospital believes that only doctors who deal with incurable diseases can truly understand what euthanasia is for and support it.
"Any doctor who sees patients in agony with pain that is impossible any more to relieve with morphine or other medicines thinks it is better for him to die. That's sounds awful but it is the truth, which is also shared by the relatives and patient himself."Â
Jamalyan says the most acute issue of euthanasia is whether it is clear that a person has made the decision with a sound mind.
"A lot of work should be done before accepting euthanasia to determine the criteria, legislation. I am not sure I will easily sign a paper permitting euthanasia and I am sure for many it will be a hard decision,"Â he told ArmeniaNow.
"But doctors can hesitate for a long time, while their patients may be dying in agony. The decision about euthanasia for terminally ill patients, for whom the death is only a relief, is not a mathematical problem with several possible variants. You just take it or not. After all, we know of cases when fatally sick people have committed suicide."Â
Infant oncologist Lala Vagharshyan shares Jamalyan's approach and says that euthanasia is mercy, not murder. However, she rules it out for children.
"Euthanasia assumes that somebody wants to die of their own will and the doctor just fulfills his desire. Since children can not understand what euthanasia is, their parents should take the decision for them. Apart from the fact that it is legally wrong, no parents should take such responsibility,"Â says Vagharshyan, who works at Armenia's Yolyan Center for blood transfusion.
Like many churches worldwide, the Armenian Apostolic Church rejects the concept of euthanasia. Vardapet Hair Sahak Mashalyan, vice-supervisor of the Gevorgyan seminary in Echmiadzin, says that even though he does not consider euthanasia to be directly equivalent to murder, it contradicts the teachings of Christianity.
"Religion teaches us to believe in miracles. The legalization of euthanasia would devalue society's respect for people's lives,"Â he says.
Hair Sahak believes that legalization of euthanasia would lead to perilous and unpredictable consequences, when disabled or elderly people could be killed simply because they were regarded as undesirable either by society or family members.
"Euthanasia is against the will of God. God gives life and only God can take it."Â
Psychologist Ara Chalikyan has another interpretation of Christianity. Chalikyan, a doctor at polyclinic N11, argues: "The Bible says that God granted a human being the right to choose. Prohibition of euthanasia therefore contradicts the Bible, since no one can take away the person's right to choose if that right is given by God.
"What is civilization if it condemns a human being to torture, to leaving people in pain?"Â
Christina Avanisyan a gynecologist at the Blessed Virgin maternity hospital in Yerevan, fears that euthanasia may discourage doctors and scientists to seek new cures.
"If euthanasia is accepted, then which doctor would be willing to do it? It is easy to talk about, but I think doctors who would be conducting it could not live without feeling guilty, since each time they would be thinking 'what if there were a chance?',"Â she says.
"There are many cases when people live for years without problems despite a terminal diagnosis."Â
An emergency ward doctor, who preferred to remain anonymous, criticized all discussions about euthanasia in a society such as Armenia's.
"We talk about euthanasia as mercy, which I agree. But what about the 'passive' euthanasia which is taking place nationwide? Thousands of people in Armenia die not because they are terminally ill, but because they can not pay for their treatment. The government does not care. Doctors refuse to conduct surgery when they understand that the person is insolvent,"Â he says.
"I believe euthanasia can be discussed in normal civilized societies, when people are given the chance to earn money and pay for their treatment. There are people in Armenia who are starving. Should they also be offered euthanasia to put to end their hungry lives?"Â
By Julia Hakobyan, ArmeniaNow reporter
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