Professor Mary Donnelly:

Again, we are back to terminology. Some people would describe that as indirect euthanasia. One always has to look at who is using terminology and in what situation. We are back to the idea of intention and what is one's intention. Is it one's intention to end the person's life or ease their suffering? As I know the Senator has heard, it originated in Catholic doctrine, and it is very much accepted in the law. In a world without assisted dying, it is not a bad thing because the one thing one does not want is palliative care providers to be scared to provide pain relief. In this world that we live in, as in Ireland at the moment, whatever one calls it, it is something that I think we should have. I do not think we should be hauling our palliative care professionals up for providing this.

Palliative care professionals will no doubt know that the provision of certain kinds of diamorphine or whatever will end life more quickly. Again however, they can argue that they are there to ease pain. That is really important, so no matter what we do that is a space we do not want to go into changing.