Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I echo the comments of every member who has contributed. I am mindful that the public discourse on this subject is delicate and begin from a place of empathy. I was taken by Ms Woods's words – or perhaps they were Ms Gibney's – about fears over painful and protracted deaths and how a person facing that prospect may wish to access a range of choices from palliative care to ending the suffering they believe they will have to endure. I am mindful of that in how I get my head and heart around this issue.

I wish to raise a few points. When suicide was rightly decriminalised, much of the impetus had to do with stigma, burials and religious implications. An attempt was made to address a gamut of matters. When we set the law, we set the tone for our country, decide what is permissible and what is not and set the values of society. The decriminalisation and the movement in our language from people "committing" suicide to those "completing" suicide – the latter term is used by those who have gone through applied suicide intervention skills training, ASIST, and is what I would say based on my own training – come from a place of non-judgment. That is an important value for our society. However, there are implications to suicide that have not been addressed. For example, not all mortgage protection policies cover a family where a loved one who is the mortgage holder has completed suicide. Not all life assurance policies pay out in circumstances involving suicide. While we have addressed the stigma, the consequences for families have not necessarily followed the change in the law. As we attempt to set a threshold at which an individual can make a medical choice, what are the consequences that may flow from it and that are much more profound even than those that flow from suicide?

I understand the "assisted" element of our discussion to be a positive action that assists an individual in arriving at a point where he or she dies, with the individual's consent, for example, assisting an individual who is unable to get on an aeroplane by himself or herself or is unable to make arrangements independently but has a document setting out that is what he or she wants to do or has given another indication. The action could also be medical intervention, for example, providing the prescription for an individual to end his or her own life or to be assisted in ending it. These are the parameters as I understand them.

I am mindful that Marie Fleming's case was about discrimination. While we may set a threshold, we cannot guarantee that there will not be cases. In Canadian law, there has been an incremental interpretation that has moved away from the initial safeguards. This is where my concerns lie. While I wrestle with my empathy for the individual, the fear of elderly people is that, once we set a threshold, we will by default diminish the value of the lives of those for whom assisted dying suddenly becomes a choice, not because of the third party who is assisting, but because of coercion. I worry about a heap of consequences flowing from that.

My query is about how we set that threshold and safeguards in legislation so that they are immovable. I am not sure statutory provisions can actually do that as they are open to legal interpretation and argument. Incrementalism is a necessity of law as our society grows and evolves. However, I am also mindful that people are taking their own lives because of the influence of social media. The influence of social media on how an individual values his or her own life and on the choices he or she makes is pervasive, perhaps in the case of a family who are struggling to support an individual. This influence is not even intended to be coercive but the interpretation of an individual who is suffering may accelerate him or her towards a decision that he or she otherwise would not make. It comes back to what Ms Gibney said about the need for all of the other supports. I am concerned about that incrementalism and its consequences. Do the witnesses have any comments in that regard?