The challenge of basic human rights has dominated this year’s news. Bitter debates on abortion and flagburning have laid the foundation for a continuously greater analysis of our fundamental rights.

The issue grabbing this week’s headlines is not our right to decide a fetus’ future or burn a flag, but our right to die. In an unprecedented decision, the Illinois Supreme Court Monday granted terminally ill patients the right to end nourishment through food and water tubes.

Prompted by the case of a 78-year-old patient in a Naperville nursing home, the ruling allows patients or their relatives to refuse life-sustaining treatment. The bitterly divided court might mirror the ambivalence many feel about deciding to take a human life, even at the patient’s request.

When does life end? Does it end when our heart stops pumping or our lungs refuse to move? Or does it end when we don’t want to live anymore?

Life-sustaining machines are important for those with a chance for survival. The court has wisely realized that it cannot decide when one is to die. It cannot force life-sustaining treatment if one chooses to die.

Being hooked up to a machine is not living. And although the phrase “pulling the plug” may sound harsh and inhuman, sometimes this is the most merciful option of all.