From the paper I understand a good death to be one where a dying individual, their family and the healthcare professionals taking care of them all feel that everything that could be realisitically done to keep them healthy and alive has been done. At this point it is agreed by all that being free of pain and having the acceptance of the condition that they are suffering with is a good death. Obvioulsy for many religion plays a big role in end of life thinkings but I agree with the article that in today's soceity medicine plays a much bigger role. I think the idea that everything has been done, or enough is enough is important to patients, families and healthcare professionals alike in determining a good death.
I agree with you Sadhana that religion plays a very important role specially when it comes down to the practice of intentionally removing life support which is known as euthanasia. Euthanasia could be voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary is when one takes the decision to die himself while involuntary is when the family or health professionals decide on your behalf.
Voluntary euthanasia to me seems more of a suicide and to commit suicide is to give up and only proves hopelessness.The fact that patient himself takes the decision to die proves that he is in his senses and is not in coma. We have seen many cases where the patients recover of illness even when the doctors have given up on them. From an Islamic perspective it is believed that there is no end to doing good deeds so one can not decide to die early as you might want to ask for more life to do good deeds and ask for fogiveness for your sins.
Regarding Involuntary euthanasia I read a few Islamic fatwas( legal pronouncement in islam) although most muslim scholors believe that euthanasia in the form of actively helping a person to die is religiously forbidden, none the less many of them differentiate between that and removing an artificial means of sustaining life.
Following is a fatwa from Fiqah council of North America.
" If the medical experts have determined that a patient is in a terminal condition, there is no hope for his/her recovery and all medication has become useless, then it could be permissible for them, through a collective decision, to stop the medication. If the patient is on life support, it may be permissible, with due consultation and care, to decide to switch off the life support machine and let nature take its own time. Under no condition it is permissible to induce death. As long as a person is alive, it is his/her right to be fed. Medical experts and relatives should not withhold nutrition from a living person. They should do their best to provide him/her with necessary nutrition by whatever method is possible" .
