Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda? In this biomedical science, this ethics, there's a problem arising. The person, the family of the person who is suffering, says that "Please don't apply these machines. Let the person die." But the medical doctors say "No, we'll keep him alive as long as we can go on." So this is a problem. So who's right? Is the family right, or...
Prabhupāda: Family right. Family is intelligent, that "You are rascal, why you are trying? Let him die peacefully."
Bali-mardana: They say "Let him die in dignity. Why keep him in the machine?" The family says "Let him die in dignity."
Rāmeśvara: They keep him in coma.
Prabhupāda: After all, you cannot protect. Why you give trouble at the time of death? You cannot protect; your foolish attempt will not help him. This is the same philosophy, that the animal is suffering, to kill him. Mercy of killing, what is called?
Rāmeśvara: Mercy killing.
Prabhupāda: So this is nonsense. Mercy killing. Killing mercy. (laughs) Just see. The action is killing, and that is his mercy. This is their mercy. All contradictory. Killing by mercy? Mercy is killing?
Hari-śauri: There's an example that's just going up to the courts now. There's one family, their daughter was being supported by one machine, so one day they went in early and pulled out the plugs. So now they are being taken to court. They stopped the machine because she'd been in a coma for so long, so they just pulled out the plugs and everything, the machine. So that's what they call mercy killing. They don't like the doctors just to keep them there uselessly.
Rāmeśvara: But then they want to kill the old people. This mercy killing, they think that "An old man is suffering, so let us kill him."
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They think if someone dies in their sleep, they are very lucky.
Prabhupāda: It is dangerous to die here.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not as dangerous as in Africa. I saw one movie, and there's one tribe, that when a man becomes very old...
Prabhupāda: Yes, I've heard of that.
Hari-śauri: They throw him on the roof, and then eat him.
Prabhupāda: That is a feast.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Love feast.
Prabhupāda: Grandfather feast. Now great-grandfather feast.