Mr. Peter Kearns:

Instead of using the term "life-limiting condition", we would speak about disabled people - that is, people who are disabled by society. On assisted suicide or assisted dying, we see that as a reflection of the medical model of disabled thinking. People who have those impairment labels cannot have a life-limiting condition. The idea is that because you have an impairment label, it overshadows everything. When I work with non-disabled actors they are not concerned about the character, they are concerned about the character's impairment label. If they have a hump, do they walk in a certain way? It is quite obvious from polls, and Deputy Kenny is right, that 80% of people would vote for assisted dying today because they are caught up in a medical model and a narrative about impairments. Disabled people are fighting against that. It is not a level playing field. We already have quite a strong medical model narrative in this State. It is only since 2018 that the UN convention has been ratified here. It is only now that disabled person's organisations are calling it out. We do not talk to non-disabled people. We talk to disabled people and give them the opportunity to identify as disabled people, not as identified by impairments. Society in general is obsessed with fear-mongering about impairment labels. We think that the massive support for assisted dying is based on fear and bias.