Dr. Thomas Finegan:

To clarify what I meant, it cannot be rationally, consistently or non-arbitrarily restricted to cases of terminal illness and cannot be restricted to physical suffering either because someone could judge their quality of life to be diminished purely on mental illness or psychological grounds. That is a key point. We might try to posit simply the parameters of terminal illness, but if quality of life is the way we get there, then quality of life will overshoot the runway by a long way, as will any other rationale, whether it is autonomy or rational choice. Dr. McKeown O'Donovan just mentioned in relation to quality of life that life always has intrinsic value, but this contradicts an earlier statement where she said that life's value can diminish in value according to the views of the person whose life it is. She used that point to justify her thesis. I put it to her that if we are thinking in quality of life terms, we cannot also affirm that everybody's life is of intrinsic, equal and inviolable worth. That is what is at stake. We might think we can think in terms of a very narrow little section or a little move from here to there and we can leave it at that, but we are dealing with principles and values that far extend the narrow confines or small moves by degree in either direction. This ruptures so much of what we take for granted and we will not be able to see this for generations but we will see it. Other countries are seeing it right now, including Canada.