Dr. Annie McKeown O'Donovan:

I agree with what the Deputy said about the wording of the law in New Zealand. Indeed we will have to see how matters progress, similar to the states in the USA where the law is similarly tight and refined and things have changed. As the Deputy said, when things become legal people choose to avail of them.

As the Deputy mentioned, when things become legal, people choose to avail of them. A question that needs to be considered in terms of policy formation is what number of people availing of such a choice is an okay number to accept. At what point do we say that the parameters have been pushed too far and too many people are availing of this? This is a different question that can come outside the implementation of such laws. The monitoring procedures around maintaining safeguards need to be tightly defined and fine-tuned in order to decide such empirical questions. I am sure that the argument will be made that any number is arbitrary, but once a choice is available to people, they will avail of it. This choice can also be part of good end-of-life care.