Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 20 June 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying

Assisted Dying and the Constitution: Discussion

Obviously the committee would have to talk to them. It does raise very specific, difficult questions.

Finally, the most difficult question on the active-passive distinction, it really comes down to thousands of years of philosophical debate. You may say you do not buy it and many philosophers just do not buy the distinction but it about drilling down into which ethical framework one signs up to. In law schools, we often do the trolley problem where we get people to decide whether they would save one person to save five people and so on. They are very tricky philosophical questions. It is great that the committee is willing to tackle them because they are the questions that underpin the questions that are before it.