Dr. Anne Doherty:

The Deputy raises a very important point, which is the primacy of autonomy in the debate. As I am not by any means an ethicist, I am very reluctant to wade into the moral arguments around this. I prefer to stick to the facts and the vulnerability of certain populations because that is where my knowledge is. For example, in Oregon, people would be covered by the law for the six-month cut-off Deputy Kenny has described for people with terminal illness and people who are very clearly going into that stage of their lives. It has not changed all that much in 20 years. The situation has been quite stable. The worry I have is that it is the population where we saw the increased rates of suicide in older women and in terms of assisted dying in that population as well. While in principle-----