Dr. Kevin Yuill:

I thank the committee for inviting me to appear. I am emeritus professor of history at the University of Sunderland, chief executive officer of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia and author of Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalization. We are a group of individuals from various walks of life who are united by our lack of religious beliefs and our opposition to the legalisation of any form of assisted suicide or euthanasia. From here on, I will refer to it as assisted dying, though I have problems with the terminology.

A moral rule against killing is worth keeping even if we tolerate exceptions to the rule, which we should. Protecting life can only occur with a law against killing. Defining killing as medical treatment for suffering is inherently problematic and logically progresses to include anybody who suffers.

I will make four points. The first is that this issue is entirely different from abortion. Many of us, not least me, supported the repeal of the eighth amendment. Abortion is necessary for women to be equal to men. It is a real solution to a real problem. In contrast, the case for assisted dying is based on fear.The answer to fears about death, however, is better palliative care.

For those who are not, assisted dying is not the answer. In the Netherlands, where it has been legal for more than 20 years, between 28.5% and 42.8% of dying patients still experience pain and restlessness in their last hours, days and weeks. One can see that assisted dying is not the solution for that particular problem. We argue that abortion is a necessary event that must have legal and medical sanction. In contrast, the law needs to retain a reverence for human life, not just potential human life, and continue to treat death as a serious and solemn event rather than simply reducing it to a medical option.

The second point is that the case for legalised assisted dying is flawed. The case rests on two basic premises, and has done since it was first brought into being or proposed seriously in the modern form in 1870. Those premises are autonomy and compassion. True autonomy would mean that anyone with suicidal impulses should be allowed to have an assisted death. Compassion implies euthanasia and a judgment that death is in another individual’s best interests. As a historian, I can provide many examples of how that has become problematic and of how acting on compassion is not always a good thing.

Third, evidence shows that assisted dying has harmful effects where it is implemented. In every country where it has been legalised for a reasonable length of time, as the previous speaker said, cases have increased rapidly and the criteria for eligibility have expanded. I draw the committee's attention to Canada, the land of my birth, where assisted dying was legalised in 2016 and where many seek it for problems of homelessness, poverty and inadequate medical resources. Some 17.3% of those who opted for it in 2021 cited loneliness and-or social isolation as a reason. This is before mental illness becomes an eligibility criterion in March 2024. In the Netherlands, it has expanded. I will not go into it. Members can ask me if they like; I have it chapter and verse on that, as is said. We have seen a number of grotesque examples of unnecessary deaths outside of Canada, namely, in Belgium and in the Netherlands in particular, where it has been legalised for some time. For instance, we can see there have been at least eight cases in the Netherlands where the only illness was autism and the reason cited was intolerable disruptions to daily routines. There have been many more for mental illness. In Belgium, euthanasia for those suffering from dementia is increasingly routine. Even in the United States, where proponents pointedly do not campaign for extensions to criteria, it has expanded.

Fourth, we believe that it is wrong for the state to kill citizens, whether as punishment for a crime, as in capital punishment, or simply because peoples’ lives are wretched, either in their judgment or somebody else's. The problem is not the fate of the individual concerned but the fate of a society that agrees to kill them. Even when it involves best possible motives, institutional killing by the state is problematic. We have seen the grim evidence emerging from Canada, and we urge Ireland to think again about this issue and keep the law as it stands.