John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. McKeown O'Donovan for what she said regarding the slippery slope argument because that is one of the things we have to consider as well. She said that using the slippery slope argument is "neither always reasonable, straightforward, nor a good basis for policy formation". It is important to note that.

Coming to Dr. Finnegan, and these are the things we grapple with, I refer to devaluing. He did not mention the Swiss model. Representatives from Dignitas came before the committee last week. The Swiss model seems to be a million miles from the Canadian one. I do not mean to call it a model; it is their way of doing things. It has been around for 40 years and does not seem to have suffered the consequences or the implications of the Dutch or Canadian models. It does not seem to have slipped down that slope.

It seems to have maintained itself within pretty strict parameters.

What has been said about the implications of doing this is not lost on me. They have been very well described and it has to be part of the committee's consideration that there are things we cannot perceive of now in terms of making decisions that will have consequences for how life might be viewed or valued.

The Dignitas model is not perfect by any manner or means. I can only speak for myself when I say that I do not want us to do a Canadian version of this. From what we were told last week, I certainly do not want to even consider a Dutch way of doing things, and I do not know whether that was the intention when setting out.

To Dr. McKeown O'Donovan, why discriminate against the person who cannot physically do this but who may be on an equal par with someone who can physically take their own life?

Dr. Finegan said that he would not make the decision to kill me. What if I said to him that I am not asking him to do that and, if we go back to the conversation we were having, that I am saying I have made the decision and I want the ability to be able to do it myself for the reasons I have outlined? I do take on board very strongly what he has said. What he is implying to me is that a conversation at some point along the line where he says, "You know, John, you are valued. You may not see it but there are people who care about you. It may not be visible to you right now but there are people for whom your loss would be quite devastating, even though that may never have been expressed or articulated", may have an impact on me who may feel like a burden, where I feel that if I hang around, it will have complications for those people around me. Those conversations could be game-changers, and I do not use that term lightly. I also think those are things we have to consider as a committee in terms of what leads a person to that conclusion.

I come back to a piece, and I thank the Cathaoirleach for sharing it, by Evan Davis in The Sunday Times, which is the story of his father who seemed to have made a very informed decision to end his own life, who certainly was conscious of the love he had for his family and was very conscious of the love his family had for him, and that this was not a reflection on anything but that life had come to a point. I am not certain and maybe Dr. Finegan can say a bit more about how the notion of the value of life and the right to help now might be altered irredeemably by a slight change in the law.