The College of Psychiatrists in Ireland has come out strongly against the proposal to legalise Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (PAS-E). In a new paper released just before Christmas, they say it is “contrary to the efforts of psychiatrists, other mental health staff and the public to prevent deaths by suicide.” It will place vulnerable...
The campaign to legalise assisted suicide in Ireland is gathering pace. As with the abortion referendum, human stories are being used to win the public around to the proposition. This was very much the case on RTE’s Claire Byrne Live last Monday night. The result is that suicide is being normalised. Vulnerable people are being...
To lots of international publicity, a new assisted suicide machine gained legal approval in Switzerland last week called ‘Sarco’, short for sarcophagus. As the name implies, it is a coffin-shaped and sized container that is flooded with nitrogen when activated from inside by the suicidal person, killing them. The development caused remarkably little outrage because...
A Bill to introduce assisted suicide in the UK will be debated in the House of Lords this month. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not support it, while doctors and disability rights campaigners have also criticised the Bill. Last May, Baroness Meacher introduced the Assisted Suicide Bill in the House of Lords. The Bill, which...
A new law in Queensland, Australia, will force hospitals and hospices to facilitate euthanasia even when it is contrary to their ethos. This is a very dramatic development and a clear example of how the ‘culture of death’, with the backing of the State, is eroding not only the right to life, but the ability...
The Private Member’s Bill to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia, proposed by Deputy Gino Kenny, has been rejected by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice as it contains serious flaws and it was criticised by the majority of the public submissions, particularly by doctors. The Committee has recommended that a Special Oireachtas Committee should be...
The Oireachtas Justice Committee discussed the topic of assisted suicide/euthanasia in private session during the week. We wonder if the members considered concerns raised by disability rights groups internationally about such laws affect them, the signal it sends that their lives are less worth living than those of fully healthy people. Four United Nations Rapporteurs...
David Quinn of The Iona Institute was on Lunchtime Live on Newstalk to discuss assisted suicide as a Bill intended to legalise the practice discussed by the Oireachtas Justice Committee. David said that permitting it would send some people the signal that their lives are not worth living and therefore assisted suicide is not simply...
Some of the most important medical bodies in the country have now declared to be against Ireland legalising assisted suicide. Several have sent submissions to the Oireachtas Justice Committee and expressed opposition to far-left TD Gino Kenny’s ‘Dying with Dignity’ Bill. We must hope the voices of some of the country’s most distinguished doctors will...
As mentioned in the previous blog, a document in support of euthanasia and assisted suicide has been submitted the Oireachtas Committee on Justice by a small group of Irish doctors. That blog examined how the document’s reasoning illustrates the existence of a slippery slope even while denying it. This blog will look at its ambiguous...
