Donal O'Mathuna talks on BBC1 Northern Ireland on Tuesday 11 April
Tuesday 11 April

Dónal O’Mathúna

Dr Dónal O’Mathúna, Lecturer in Health Care Ethics at the School of Nursing, Dublin City University, will be part on a round-table discussion on assisted suicide to air on BBC1 Northern Ireland on Tuesday April 11th at 22.35. Entitled ‘What’s Wrong With… Assisted Suicide’, the informal discussion is hosted by William Crawley. The discussion was stimulated by the introduced into the House of Lords of Lord Joffe’s new and amended ‘Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill’ in November 2005. The bill would legalise physician assisted suicide in England and Wales for those suffering unbearably from a terminal illness. The bill will be discussed again in the House of Lords in May 2006.

Dr O’Mathúna acknowledged the difficult situations many patients find themselves in at the end of life. When someone asks for help to end their lives, they are asking whether their lives are worth living. If assisted suicide is legalised, it sends a message that certain types of lives are not worth living. A better response is to remain committed to helping every single person find a reason to keep on living. That can be difficult, but it is what health care should remain committed to. Health care is about helping people live as well as possible; it should not be about helping some people end their lives.

The participants in the discussion who support Lord Joffe’s bill state that people should have access to help ending their lives when they are competent to make that choice. Assisted suicide is something some people want. Those who disagree with the idea would not need to make use of the law.

Dr O’Mathúna pointed out that making it legal for some people to help others die would be a monumental change. It would have an impact on health care professionals who would now be deliberately helping some patients die. In difficult ethical decisions, everyone should be motivated to help people live as well as possible, even when they are dying. With that goal in mind, patients need access to the better palliative and hospice care, not assisted suicide.