Experts warn Irish lawmakers against legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia

Leading experts recently spoke to Irish lawmakers, warning them against attempting to pass legislation that would legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Testimony was presented to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Assisted Dying, a committee that has been formed to make recommendations on policy changes that could allow assisted suicide and euthanasia in the country. The committee is expected to present its findings next month.

Palliative care expert Professor Roderick MacLeod of the University of Auckland warned the committee that legalizing death sends “the message that some lives are not worth living.” He also noted it could “place pressure on vulnerable people including older people, those living with dementia and those with disabilities”.

“Euthanasia, or assisted dying in any form, is antithetical to the purpose and practice of medicine and has the potential to put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives, to undermine palliative care services and to change society’s broader perceptions about suicide,” he said.

The committee also heard from Professor Merete Nordentoft, a Professor in Psychiatry at the University of Copenhagen, who told the lawmakers why a similar committee in Denmark recently rejected assisted suicide and euthanasia in all forms.

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“Assisted dying may cause unacceptable changes to basic norms for society and healthcare. The very existence of an offer of assisted dying will decisively change our ideas about old age, the coming of death, living with disability, quality of life and what it means to take others into account,” Nordentoft said.

As an expert in suicide prevention, Nordentoft also told the committee that many people change their minds about suicide over time – but legalizing assisted death allows them to make a fatal mistake from which they cannot return. This testimony correlates with a study out of Ireland, which found that 72% of those age 50 and up who “wish to die” change their minds within two years.

Finally, the Dutch National Council of Ethics sent a statement explaining why it turned down the possibility of assisted suicide in its country.

“If assisted dying becomes an option, there is too great a risk that it will become an expectation aimed at special groups in society. An institutionalization of assisted dying therefore risks threatening the principle that we have the same claim to respect and dignity, regardless of how much we suffer and how high the quality of life is assessed to be,” it said. “If we offer assisted dying, it says, directly or indirectly, that some lives are not worth living.”

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