AN OIREACHTAS COMMITTEE has heard that “even a small step” towards legalising assisted dying will lead to a “a radical re-orientation” of how Irish society views the “equality of human lives”.

However, the committee also heard that “descending down a slippery slope is not inevitable” if assisted dying is legalised.

The committee is currently examining whether to introduce voluntary assisted dying laws in Ireland, following the passage of a bill tabled by People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny in 2020.

The committee was established in January and this morning it heard from three academics on the issue.

In his opening statement, Dr Thomas Finegan, assistant professor within the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Mary Immaculate College, argued that voluntary assisted dying “could only be introduced by disavowing a primary healthcare norm: no intentional killing.”

He added that the “norm against intentional killing is a moral requirement necessary to protect equally the life of every person from being attacked”.

“When the norm is sidelined to accommodate euthanasia it can no longer be maintained consistently that every human life is of intrinsic, equal, and inviolable worth,” said Finegan.

Finegan stated that the “central euthanasia rationale argues that choices for death are morally protected by the respect owed to individual autonomy”.

However, he argued that “acceptance of the autonomy rationale requires rejecting attempts to restrict euthanasia in order to limit consensual deaths”.

Appearing to appeal to a “slippery slope” argument, Finegan said: “When legalisation of euthanasia occurs per the autonomy rationale there appears to be no consistent, non-arbitrary justification for limiting euthanasia access.”

He said any attempt to draw a line between a “legitimate and illegitimate euthanasia ground” will appear as “unfair discrimination”.

He further claimed that any legalisation of voluntary assisted dying will have “an inbuilt orientation towards expansion of euthanasia grounds and increase in euthanasia numbers”.

In bringing his opening statement to a close, Finegan argued that there “is no stable middle ground”, adding: “The current law is the only credible safeguard on offer against the normalization of consensual killing in healthcare.”

The committee also heard from Professor Kevin Yuill, who is the CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (HAASE).

He described HAASE as “a group of individuals from various walks of life united by our lack of religious beliefs and our oppositon to legalising assisted suicide and/or euthanasia”.

He said the issue is “totally different from abortion” and said that he supported the repeal of the 8^th amendment.

While he described abortion legislation as a “real solution to a real problem”, he claimed that the case for voluntary assisted dying is “based on fear”.

He added that the “answer to fears about death is better palliative care”.

He too pointed to a “slippery slope” argument and told the committee that Canada is the most “dramatic example” of this.

Yuill told the committee that in Canada, “many seek euthanasia for problems of homelessness, poverty, and inadequate medical resources”.

He also noted that a report on voluntary assisted dying in Canada which found that 17.3% of those who availed of voluntary assisted dying in 2021 cited loneliness and/or social isolation as a reason for doing so.

The same report found that 35.7% of respondents cited a “perceived burden on family, friends or caregivers”.

“We have grim evidence emerging from Canada and we urge Ireland to think again about this issue and keep the law as it stands,” said Yuill.

However, Dr Annie McKeown O’Donovan told the Committee that voluntary assisted dying should be legal within “strict, ethically defensible parameters”.

She completed doctoral research in 2021 titled ‘Ethics and Assisted Dying in the Republic of Ireland’ and told the committee that this research provides a “socially acceptable position” which “should alleviate some fears about descending towards any potential slippery slope”.

McKeown O’Donovan said a request for “for active assistance with death should be respected and fulfilled” if that person:

• Is someone who is imminently dying;
• has exhausted all avenues of available respite;
• finds their current and prospective quality of life unacceptable;
• values death now, more than an inevitably short period of life judged by them as intolerable, resulting in death soon anyway.

She added that while “human life has moral worth and value”, there exist “specific narrow contexts” in which this can be overridden.

She also hit out against the “slippery slope” argument and claimed that “it is compelling because it plays on our fears about what might happen in the future”.

“Laws have changed in some jurisdictions to widen the parameters of what is allowed, and this is sometimes taken as proof that the slippery slope exists,” said McKeown O’Donovan.

“However, descending down a slippery slope is not inevitable: empirical evidence also demonstrates that we can safeguard against such a descent.”

She added that “legalisation of assisted dying in Ireland will need the care of strict and considered safeguards”.