Mr. Andrew Copson:

I am the chief executive of Humanists UK, of which Northern Ireland Humanists is a national section. We work together with our sister organisation, the Humanist Association of Ireland, which also supports assisted dying on the same basis.

In my role as president of Humanists International, I also have insight and experience of other jurisdictions where assisted dying has been made legal. Humanist organisations around the world almost universally supported that and I have spent the past 20 years on policy work on assisted dying and its intersection with human rights.

As an organisation, Humanists UK and Northern Ireland Humanists have advocated for assisted dying for more than 100 years. The aim of humanist organisations is a more tolerant world where rational thinking and kindness will prevail in human affairs. We work for a better society based on our belief that this is the one life we have. Our work and our policies are always directed towards making sure all people will have happier more fulfilled and better lives. That is the perspective in which our view on assisted dying is grounded, specifically in reason and compassion. Our policy in recent times has been shaped by real life individuals who have fought for a law to give them the right to make important decisions over their own bodies, their treatment and, ultimately, their own deaths. In the UK context, where European convention rights are justiciable in UK courts, we supported our members, Noel Conway, Omid T, Paul Lamb, and Tony Nicklinson, in four separate cases attempting to overhaul the law on assisted

dying on human rights grounds. In all of these cases, the individual had an incurable condition, had received or been offered palliative care and their quality of life had fallen below what they found to be acceptable. We feel they should have had the option of an assisted death.

All life is valuable but humanists, and I believe many other people, believe that quality of life is perhaps the most important thing when making decisions about life and death. This is actually for us and for many people, also the heart of human dignity. We should value human beings' personal autonomy and defend the right of individuals who have come to rational, settled decisions about their own bodies to be able to carry out their own wishes. Autonomy is not the only ethical case for assisted dying. Human dignity is part of that case. Specifically, the dignity of choice is of central concern to us. Dying is part of life and to the same extent that everyone deserves dignity and choice in other aspects of their lives we also all deserve that same dignity and choice in dying.

Our support for assisted dying must be contextualised in changing societal views, outlooks on life, and religious beliefs. Of course, the demographics of Irish society are changing just like the belief demographics of every part of the western world. They will continue to change as citizen's deeply held beliefs change and they will be diverse. In the context of that diversity of ethical view one of the best ways - really the only way - for liberal democratic institutions to adapt is to give increasing choice, the right for every person to follow their own conscience as long as it does not harm others. This choice of assisted death does not harm others. It does not impose or restrict the rights of others whose views differ. I am not aware of any international jurisdiction that does not allow doctors the right to

conscientiously object to assisted dying, as long as that objection does not prevent an individual from accessing their rights and their proper care. The current status quo, as we have also heard, puts real families who are in real situations today in a very painful position. They essentially have three options. They watch their loved one suffer, they take matters into their own hands, sometimes in a brutal way that is brutalising for everyone involved, or they spend extortionate amounts fleeing their own country to a jurisdiction such as Switzerland where it is possible to have an assisted death. I have read very moving testimony and I am sure the committee has also from the Humanist Association Ireland and from Irish people in this position and I think that to knowingly continue to confine people to those three options is itself immoral.

The myth that palliative care will be negatively impacted by growing choice has been debunked time and time again. Palliative Care Australia asked this question before their country legalised assisted dying and they concluded that "in [all] jurisdictions where assisted dying is available, the palliative care sector has further advanced [and developed]". Annual reports from Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada repeatedly show the same thing, which is that the massive majority of people who use assisted dying laws are over 70, nearly all have already received or have access to, good palliative care and they are using the law in precisely the way I have outlined, which is to take control over the very end of their lives.

Finally, who should qualify for assisted dying? This was also touched on by Professor Binchy. I believe, and polls show that a majority of people in Ireland believe, that eligibility for assisted dying should be based on reducing unnecessary suffering. Rather than being based solely on a doctor’s prognosis of how long he or she has to live, it should be up to the individual to determine when his or her quality of life falls below what he or she deems to be tolerable. He or she should be in control and should be allowed that option.

Individuals with neurological degenerative conditions can potentially live for years with unnecessary pain and suffering. There are other incurable physical conditions that make people’s lives intolerable but that will not lead to death in the foreseeable future. These people deserve a choice. Adults of sound mind who are intolerably suffering from an incurable physical condition and who have a clear and settled wish to die should have the option of an assisted death. Austria, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Colombia, Switzerland and Spain have all legalised assisted dying for people in both of these categories. Ireland would be joining a growing number of compassionate nations if it introduced this change.