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Hinduism: Dialogue with Ethics

Hindu Views on Human Life and Death

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 2

Overview

Hindu responses to the prescribed issues of human life and death, including euthanasia and prayopavesa, the Indian Supreme Court's rulings on withdrawing treatment, capital punishment and danda, and cloning, designer babies and sex selection.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Process

Which follower of Gandhi ended his life by refusing food and medicine?

Process

Which Indian law stops parents choosing the sex of their baby?

Process

What did India's Supreme Court decide in Common Cause v Union of India in 2018?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why do many Hindus oppose voluntary euthanasia?

    Model answer

    Ending a life early interrupts the soul's karmic course, so the karma still has to be worked out in a later birth, and the person who helps may also incur bad karma.

  2. 2

    What argument do some Hindus make in favour of helping a suffering person to die?

    Model answer

    Relieving someone of hopeless pain can be seen as a compassionate act that fulfils a moral duty to others, and so may bring good rather than bad karma.

  3. 3

    What is prayopavesa?

    Model answer

    A traditional practice of fasting to death, permitted only to the very old or terminally ill who have no remaining duties, and not treated as suicide because it is non-violent, gradual and publicly declared.

  4. 4

    Which follower of Gandhi ended his life by refusing food and medicine?

    Model answer

    Vinoba Bhave, who died in 1982.

  5. 5

    How does prayopavesa differ from active euthanasia?

    Model answer

    The person allows death to come naturally by giving up food, rather than someone else ending the life with drugs, so no one takes on the karma of killing.

  6. 6

    What did India's Supreme Court decide in Common Cause v Union of India in 2018?

    Model answer

    It recognised a right to die with dignity, allowing passive euthanasia and living wills that refuse life support, while active euthanasia remains illegal.

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