Professor William Binchy:

The Senator raised a lot of very interesting points there. I will pick up on her last point and the idea of separating untimely suicide in response to sudden social pressures or even ongoing social pressures, on the one hand, and the person who calmly decides to take his or her own life, on the other. One can make that distinction and some cases would fall within that distinction but the tragedy is that following the introduction of the kind of measure that is being considered here by the committee, what one actually discovers is that the people about whom the Senator is concerned, those in the first category, are very eligible and are actually delivered for the taking, not just of assisted suicide but what turns into a form of euthanasia. The point that I would stress relates to the logic of going through that door and closing it behind one. We have two people here who are very nice and who are concerned advocates but one of the gentlemen - I hope I am right in saying this and am not misrepresenting Mr. Copson's position - is not someone who proposes that death be imminent, in any sense.

I would just address the Senator on the point about the Pro Life Campaign. If she reads the literature of the Pro Life Campaign which is available on the Internet, she will see the Pro Life Campaign is very much a social justice organisation. If I may speak personally, myself and my friends are strong supporters of Travellers' rights and have been over the years. I am getting old at this stage but I think the Senator’s colleagues will give verification of that particular proposition. When it came to asylum seekers and changing the law here, in terms of constitutional change against their interests, I was opposing the matter. I think her idea is a misconception because she has been listening to the propaganda, sadly, in that area.