Dr. Kevin Yuill:

On whether there are any circumstances where it is acceptable, I would say "Yes". I am against a change in the law, not simply individual cases, and there are many individual cases where it might be appropriate. If you get to my age, you will probably have had near-deaths where there is suffering at the end of life, and if a doctor gives medication, for instance, that has the effect of alleviating pain but also of killing the patient as a side effect, I do not think I would have any objections. My objection is more to a change in the law and a change in the principle we are talking about, namely, where we value life. I think everybody in this room would want to reduce suffering at the end of life and elsewhere. It is a question of whether we go across what I would characterise as this moral precipice, rather than as a slippery slope, and identify death as some sort of healthcare.

On the issue of the slippery slope, I think that once we define killing as healthcare, it will be difficult to deny it to anyone who purports to need it. This is the real, practical problem we have when we are looking at this legislation. How can we deny healthcare of any variety to anyone, including children? If we define assisted dying as healthcare, that is the problem we will get.