Oireachtas committee proposals on assisted dying 'completely rejected' by bishops
The bishops said ending a life prematurely would represent a 'failure of hope'. File picture: Pexels
In a pastoral letter, the bishops hit out at recommendations, published earlier this year by a special Oireachtas committee, which urged the Government to legislate for assisted dying in restricted circumstances.
In its final report, the Oireachtas committee broadly proposed that assisted dying should be an option for terminally-ill people with less than six months to live, or 12 months if they are suffering from a neurodegenerative condition.
When a person’s capacity to make a decision is in doubt, a functional test would be introduced as part of the assessment for eligibility, the report said.
It also recommended that a criminal offence be introduced for coercing someone into assisted dying.
However, the bishops’ letter said people with intellectual disabilities would be particularly vulnerable if such a law is passed, and they argued that healthcare professionals would be betraying their duty to care for the sick.
“We are aware, of course, that the final report proposes various restrictions regarding who might have access to assisted suicide and under what circumstances,” the bishops said.
“We have little confidence that those proposed restrictions would offer any real protection.
The bishops said ending a life prematurely would represent a “failure of hope”.
“The Church does not and never has insisted on the use of extraordinary means to prolong life,” they said.
“Nor is there any moral obligation on a sick person to accept treatment they feel is unduly burdensome. A decision to end life prematurely, however, cuts off any prospect of growth or healing and represents a failure of hope.”
The Oireachtas committee had proposed that the right to conscientious objection should be protected in law for healthcare workers, although they will be obliged to refer a patient interested in assisted dying to a participating professional or oversight body.
The bishops said these requirements would radically “undermine the ethos of healthcare”.
“Whatever the circumstances, the deliberate taking of human life, especially by those whose vocation is to care for it, undermines a fundamental principle of civilised society, namely that no person can lawfully take the life of another,” they said.
“Assisted suicide requires the active participation of healthcare professionals in taking the lives of the sick... when a healthcare professional refuses to participate in ending the life of a patient, he or she would then be required to refer that same patient on to a participating healthcare professional.
“In our culture, we rightly hold doctors and nurses in high esteem because they are presumed always to be at the service of life, for as long as their patient lives.”
The Oireachtas committee report recommended that medical professionals found to have acted outside regulations, or attempted to coerce an individual, will have committed an offence, while mandatory reporting to gardaí around possible coercion should be put in place.
