Professor William Binchy:

Senator Mullen asked a question about the right to suicide. He may have got to the core of the issue, which is that this matter is presented in terms of a dignified death and a right to die. There is a proposition that there is a right to terminate one's life where one has an imminent medical condition. What I have been attempting to say to the committee over the past half hour or so is that, if one accepts the logic of that particular proposition, one is inevitably driven to the logic that there is a right to suicide. If there is a right to suicide in limited circumstances, arguments based on discrimination and equality arise as to whether this right to suicide should be extended further. If we find the notion of suicide something we cannot support and a notion from which we recoil but nonetheless embrace the notion of a right to a dignified death, we must ask ourselves what is the logic of that position and what restrictions we are going to put in. In that context, the restrictions become remarkably important and the logic of restrictions being possible becomes important. If we are in the business of being wise about human nature, we know that, if the people who are involved in scrutinising these matters are supportive of death in these circumstances, it is likely that they will have a broad and liberal understanding of where the line should be drawn.