Rónán Mullen (Independent)
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I want to clarify. I got mixed up with my dates at the start and I suggested that New Zealand had introduced euthanasia in some form in 2017. It was only in 2021. In Victoria it was 2019. I suppose it goes to the point that this is all very early there. I would put it to our speakers that it is so recent that there is really no telling whether safeguards put in actually work, whereas if one looks at Oregon, which is the challenging one, there is a relatively conservative law yet there is remarkable evidence of people feeling a burden. This is where I would come to Professor Madden and Professor Donnelly to some degree. I hope I am not being unfair to them but what I hear them saying is "Don't worry. You can put safeguards in place to prevent abuses" and that may or may not be true, as to whether those safeguards will hold or whether there will be abuses etc. What I am not getting any reassurances about, however, is that there will not be changes of attitude or that people will not come to feel a burden. If Professor Jones withdraws his words of life unworthy of life, we are nonetheless talking about a situation where the State will be saying to some people that the preservation of their life is less important to us than the preservation of other people's lives. That is why when Professor Madden effectively says not to worry about cultural shifts, it is as though she is inviting us not to worry if there is an increase, even a large increase, in the number of people who want their lives ended should the law change, because that is a change in attitudes and we should be kind of neutral about that. That is the concern that many people have because where does that leave people who come to see their life as a burden? Is that the cultural shift that people are happy with? There is no abuse involved or trickery but nonetheless, more people come to see their lives as a burden. Is that to be a cultural shift? I have to say I was surprised at Professor Madden's unwillingness to see a clear distinction between a person refusing treatment, which I thought would be a given that a person could do that, and a person not nonetheless being allowed to implicated somebody else in the termination of their lives. Surely Professor Madden's logic is that we should have no concern about preventing suicide in our society since we will allow a person to go on a hunger strike unimpeded. Is it not her logic, therefore, that if a person wants suicide for any reason, then he or she is entitled to the help of any other willing person in bringing that about?