Niamh Uí Bhriain opening address: Assisted Suicide Harms Us All

A Dhaoine Uaisle, fáilte is fiche roimh chuig an comhdháil tabhachtach, speisialta seo. Welcome to this important, significant conference where medical and legal experts – and the testimony of one brave family – will explain Why Assisted Suicide Harms Us All. 

The conference is significant because, as our first speaker will elucidate, we are facing a global, concerted, and well-funded effort to have Assisted Suicide normalised and legalised. 

But the reality is that where Assisted Suicide has been legalised, the outcomes should be ringing a loud, clanging, warning bell because of the frankly terrifying prospect of what can happen when we remove that fundamental right  - the right to life. 

Dutch expert Prof Theo Bohr says that in his country, 

“a system designed to apply to comparatively rare cases was, by 2023, accounting for 5.4 per cent of all deaths in the Netherlands, with the numbers continuing to rise. In one region, euthanasia even accounts for up to one in every six deaths. 

Euthanasia in the Netherlands is now available to children, and indeed infants, of all ages, and there are continuing attempts to extend it to anyone over 74 who considers their life ‘complete’.”

In Canada, as many of you will know, Assisted Suicide was legalised in 2016. It has increased twelvefold in that short time – and is now the fifth-leading cause of death in Canada. Preliminary data shows the severity of the situation, with more than 15,000 people lethally injected in 2024 alone. 

In addition, we are seeing the idea of assisted suicide as a cost-cutting measure gain traction: The president of a Belgian health insurance company recently backed euthanasia for the elderly to save money, claiming that extending the country’s euthanasia laws to include those who are “tired of life” would avert a social funding crisis. 

In this country, just as having previously with other issues, bills are being brought to the Dáil and the issue is being discussed at Oireachtas Committee level – with the attendant media coverage heavily slanted in favour of Assisted Suicide. 

This conference is an important step in addressing that balance. And it is significant that raising up public oppositon to these measures has been shown to have the required results. 

In 2021, the Life Institute joined the many doctors, nurses, healthcare practitioners, disability rights activists, and others, to welcome the good news that the Oireachtas Justice Committee had, at that time, comprehensively rejected the bill which sought to legalise Assisted Suicide in Ireland. 

Noting the widespread opposition from across the spectrum to the proposal, including from a significant majority of medical practitioners, the Committee also drew attention to submissions from supporters of the Life Institute, whose quality and number merited a separate summary in the report. Thank you for making your voice heard at that time - it made a difference. 

But the successful opposition to that bill was an effort that drew many thousands of people together – and it is in that spirit that we move forward today. 

The good news is that all of the Irish medical organisations remain strongly opposed to Assisted Suicide:  88% of Palliative Care Consultants polled by the representative organisation in Ireland expressing opposition to the measure.

The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland and the Irish Palliative Care Consultants’ Association remain implacably opposed. 

The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland opposes assisted suicide in Ireland “because” it says “it is contrary to best medical practice”.

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland said it believes “the introduction of euthanasia will have a harmful effect upon society” and would “do more harm than good.”

In 2021, more than 2100 doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals signed an open letter strongly opposing the proposed legalisation of assisted suicide in Ireland.

We must make sure that the Irish government listens to these experts and to the voice of the people. 

I am reminded of the Irish seanfhocal: Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine – It is under each other shade or protection that we survive, that and we flourish. 

That is how we will bring the country to realise that Assisted Suicide Harms Us All - and that it must be rejected.