Professor Desmond O'Neill:

I am sorry, but I think the only safeguard is to not introduce euthanasia and assisted dying. That is really clear. The Committee on the Danish Council of Ethics is a signal for mature, informed debate. This cannot be regulated. It cannot be governed. It cannot spread further. There was an interesting editorial in The Lancettwo weeks ago, the title of which was "Preventing healers from becoming killers". We need to be realistic about the language here. We are talking about assisted dying. Those who know about Londonderry and Derry will understand that language is important. The term "assisted dying" is the language of those who advocate for this. We are really talking about "euthanasia", because in general most people do not want to have assisted suicide. It creates a huge strain. It upturns the parameters. We have to remember that we have an imperfect system and to add to that would make it much more difficult.

For many liberal progressives in society, one of the many objections to the death penalty is that people can be sentenced to the death penalty under false circumstances. If that is case, the danger, in terms of regulation, is that it will be too late and the deed will have happened. We will get what happens in the Netherlands and Canada, where there is a normative conformity. It becomes part of the fabric whereby people feed into this nihilism and despair, rather than looking for positive approaches. The safeguard here is to emphasise care and not killing.