Dr. Margaret Naughton:

Something I think we forget about when it comes to dying, illness and all that is that people are very vulnerable. Sometimes we underestimate how vulnerable people are when they are sick and they are faced with a terminal diagnosis. Sometimes the option to end their own life is seen as maybe an easy way out or a solution to the problem. What we are offering at the moment is compassionate care. We are seeing the vulnerability and addressing the vulnerability. You can go into all sorts of theological and philosophical debates here but for me it is about how we understand human suffering and how we help people when they are suffering to address their pain of all descriptions, including physical, emotional and spiritual. We are not here pushing any particular agenda. Yes, we are representing a particular viewpoint but we are open to conversation around this. I would suggest that we go back to the vulnerability of the human condition when we are faced with illness.

I will share one very short insight into my own experience. When I was a very young woman, I faced my own mortality. I found myself in a position where I probably wanted to die. Am I glad that the option of assisted dying was not available to me? Absolutely, because if I look at my life in the last 20 years and all the things I have achieved, all the experiences I have had-----