Head to head: Assisted suicide

No, don’t legalise it - Leah Murray

They say that there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. While we can do our best to control the latter (like moving to off-shore tax havens, but that’s a different story altogether), there isn’t much we can do about the way in which we will die.

Most of us won’t know when death is coming and will have no choice in the matter.

Some people can’t accept this. They want to control the uncontrollable. They want to be the one that makes the decision either for themselves or for someone else.

While this is often a brave or noble ideal, it is not the way the world works.

Death is so final. There is no return, no second chance and no way to reverse what has been done. That is why people baulk at the idea of assisted suicide. It’s too big a decision and sacrifice for most of us to make. So why should we change the law to cater to those very few who feel reform is needed?

The argument given by those in favour of euthanasia is that there should be a law to protect the few, and that as the majority will never have to avail of this protection, then it shouldn’t bother them if it is available or not.

Euthanasia causes so much controversy because there is something inherently wrong about helping someone to die. People oppose it, not because they feel that it will affect them, but because they want to protect the morals of society. This isn’t some irrational or outdated mode of thinking. What is so wrong with wanting to live in a world where life is sacred? In a world where people are not asked to do something that goes against every fibre in their bodies?

To say allowing assisted suicide will allow terminally ill people to die dignified deaths is not an argument, in my opinion.
Life isn’t always dignified. What’s dignified about queuing at a homeless shelter? We all have our crosses to bear in this world, and do the best we can to get by. It’s part of being human.

I don’t mean to sound uncaring and I do understand what it’s like to have a loved one in extreme pain. I’ve sat with members of my family who are dying; and on the one hand wished that I didn’t have to let them go, and on the other, wishing that their suffering would end. They said that they were feeling the same way. But the end did come, as it will for us all, eventually.

And that’s the point. Death will come. It’s not something we need to worry about engineering or controlling because it will always find us anyway.

Yes, legalise it - David Kearns

In our society, we take for granted the notion that every human being is born with certain inherent rights. The most important of these is the “right to life”. A direct consequence of this is that no one has the right to end another person’s life. However, if we control our own existence, and have the right to live life as we please, then surely we are allowed to decide when to end this existence. Is it not our right to die when and as we please?

Why then does society have an issue with the concept that a person has the right to choose the timing, and perhaps even the manner of their death? We are encouraged to sacrifice ourselves for the “greater good”, on the battlefield, or in defence of our beliefs, and yet if we are enduring unimaginable suffering on an individual level then we are expected, even obliged by law, to allow nature or God to determine when and how our lives will end.

No one should be able to dictate how and when it is acceptable for a person to end their life, yet everyday in Ireland we deny rational adults the right to do so. These are not people who are looking for attention, sympathy or martyrdom in their deaths. They are people who are suffering, those who have undergone some serious physical injury or mental disease that has left them prisoners in their own bodies. What does it say about us that we expect people, fellow humans, to continue to endure an existence that causes them pain and suffering?

It is hard to know why exactly assisted suicide disgusts and scares people so much that they are willing to allow people to life in unbearable pain. Is it the notion that the life will become secondary to economic considerations or personal convenience or that none of us will be safe once we reach old age or become disabled?

Years of legally-sanctioned euthanasia in the Netherlands, Australia, and the United States would seem to discredit such fears. Assisted suicide has been legal in Oregon for 10 years, during which time only 292 people have decided to ask someone else to help them end their lives.

Is it the implication behind suicide that people find so appalling? The idea that someone would chose death over life, and by doing so, somehow demean that which is supposedly sacred. This is the 21st century; morality should not outweigh personal liberty.

Ultimately though, we must ask ourselves a simple question - what does it say about us as a country, as a nation, when we award cats and dogs more dignity when they are suffering than we do each other.

Background - Sinead O’Brien

Drug home testing kits are to be sold in the UK for the purpose of helping people commit suicide.

Dr Phillip Nitschke, also known as Dr Death, has developed the kits in his native country of Australia where many of the services he offers are banned.

He has also ran suicide workshops throughout the UK informing people on how they could end their lives.

The drug kits in question will allow people to test barbiturates (sleep inducing drugs) to see if they will be strong enough to end their life quickly and without pain.

Dr Death, in an interview with the Observer, noted that some “drugs don’t come with labels, so people want confidence in what they are buying”.

This has sparked concerns that the so-called Dr Death could be encouraging healthy people to end their lives if they believe they have become a burden on their families.

Peter Saunders of the Care Not Killing Alliance believes that “his plan is pushing the outermost boundaries of the law and will exploit and endanger vulnerable British people.”

This testing kit has come at the same time as a Swiss euthanasia clinic has decided to let a healthy woman die alongside her terminally ill husband saying that they believe that allowing moves like this save money for the cash-strapped British National Health Service.

The clinic, Dignitas, claim that they have already assisted over 100 Britons to end their lives in their clinics.