Professor Desmond O'Neill:

Yes. I am delighted to hear the use of the word "moral" because people have been a bit touchy-feely about it. It is immoral to assist people in suicide. It may be well-intentioned. Movies are helpful vehicles for public expression. If one looks at the two movies I referred to, the people in them failed to provide for the person who they assisted in dying with an adequate framework of care or to be their advocate in the proper kind of way. One of the challenges of the Trump era is the disrespect for expertise and knowledge. It is important to infuse this debate with expertise and knowledge in an interactive and hard-questioned way. We have to set parameters. Very often in a pluralist society, people struggle to tease out or to express in a post-Catholic society their struggle in terms of relativism to say it as it is. Sometimes we have to say it as it is. Around the side of it being immoral, we need to see where the distress was and to be supportive. This is not about some form of a higher moral ground but about our common morality.