The right to die: Let’s have a conversation

IN a country that can’t agree on marriage equality it may seem recklessly premature to suggest that we might have to reconsider how we manage fatal illnesses, end-of-life decisions, and basic human dignity and sensitivity when the path to an imminent death is marked with nothing more uplifting than personality collapse and drug-induced detachment. 

Yesterday’s ruling in the Circuit Criminal Court in Dublin, after a seven-day trial, where taxi driver Gail O’Rorke was acquitted of helping her friend Bernadette Forde take her own life seems to make that conversation all the more pressing.

Ms Forde suffered from progressive multiple sclerosis.