Politicians to hear from both sides of right-to-die debate

DOCTORS will become ‘death givers’ if assisted dying is legalised in Ireland, the mother of anti-suicide campaigner Donal Walsh will tell an Oireachtas committee today.

Donal, from Kerry, was just 16 when he lost his battle with cancer, and had used his final weeks and months to encourage those contemplating suicide to value life.

The special Oireachtas committee set up to examine whether Ireland should change laws around assisted dying will today hear from Donal’s mother Elma Walsh, as well as various right-to-die campaigners.

In the nine-month examination of the topic, politicians have heard from legal, health, palliative care, euthanasia and philosophical experts, but this is the first time the witnesses will come with personal testimony. In her opening remarks, seen by the Irish Daily Mail, Mrs Walsh will tell TDs and senators she ‘fears what this committee could set in motion’ if they decided to introduce assisted suicide. ‘If it removes the present legal requirement that doctors do what they can to save lives, the value of life will be significantly reduced,’ she will say.

The committee will also hear from John Wall, who was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, and who was a friend of the late Cervical-Check campaigner Vicky Phelan. He said the pair discussed the right to die with dignity in the months before Ms Phelan’s death in 2022. The 52-year-old

Clare native will tell TDs that he is concerned about the religious narrative making its way into the debate, and criticised the proposition that legalisation would quickly lead to an expansion of the law to those who do not have a terminal illness.

He will say that both he and Ms Phelan sought to live and looked for any means that provided hope for their terminal condition. However, he will add that the debate is about ‘how a person says their final goodbye rather than when, given the fact that the inevitable is within sight’.