Melanie Giedlin
Staff Writer
Last Thursday, November 17, saw one of the most dramatic debates held by Trinity College Dublin’s Philosophical Society. Asserting that, ‘This House would provide assisted suicide for all adults’, the Phil had an impressive line up of both guest and student speakers including Sir Terry Pratchett, British novelist and author of the acclaimed fantasy series Discworld. Joining him in favor of the proposition were Dr. Philip Nitschkethe, the first physician to administer a legal voluntary lethal injection, Tom Curran, European head of the pro-Euthanasia group Exit International, and student speaker Sarah Grace. Opposing the statement were Professor Maureen Juncker-Kenny, Professor of Theology at TCD, Dr. Kevin Fitzpatrick from Not Dead Yet UK, and student speakers Liam O’Neill and Séamus Beirne.
Opening the debate was a measured appeal from student orator Sarah Grace, urging the audience to understand the difficult mindset of those wishing for assisted suicide. Emphasizing that it is voluntary, she declared that, ‘at least the audience has a choice’ in deciding whether the House’s motion stands. To end, she put herself in the place of someone who wants to voluntarily end his or her life with the statement: ‘why should you make me suffer?’. However, Professor Maureen Juncker-Kenny for the opposition asked that if we accept assisted suicide as a legal, commercial service, ‘what condition of living are we leaving behind?’. When asked by what can we assess human dignity, she answered that there is a difference between empirical dignity and intrinsic dignity: that a flaw of our society is that performance is valued, not personhood.
One of the more emotional orations came from Tom Curran, whose wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 20 years ago, and who he has cared for for 10 years. When she told him she wanted the right to end her life, he noted that she was helped by knowing that she has control over ending it, when so often it is in the hands of a ‘medical professional, not the person who is dying’. Many audience members called out in agreement when he ended his speech, in response to a question from an audience member about a government’s right to facilitate assisted suicide, with ‘the government has a responsibility to citizens, not for them’. Student speaker Liam O’Neill followed Curran by focusing on the prejudices often attached to the elderly and mentally ill, citing a 1914 medical guide. Citing Terry Pratchett himself as an example of someone who could achieve in spite of illness, fans in the audience took note when O’Neill made a reference to a character from the Discworld series.
When Terry Pratchett, the 3rd orator in favor of the motion, began to speak it was as if the entire room was hanging on his every word. Quieter, but no less powerful, than the speakers before him, Pratchett gave a first hand account of what it was like to want to have control over ending his life when the time came. Diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2007, Pratchett has not only donated significantly to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, but has also filmed a two-part BBC documentary about living with the disease. He emphatically stated that when he dies, ‘it doesn’t mean that anyone else has to die the same way’, and wished for a peaceful death ‘with a glass of brandy in his hand’. Lending both humor and pathos to the debate, Pratchett noted that in dealing with Alzheimer’s, eventually you realize ‘there’s going to be no more you’. On his opinions about euthanasia and his personal rights over dying, the author said simply: ‘I hope to have time to die.’
The third opposition, Dr. Fitzpatrick, emphasized that the issue at hand was that introducing such a law regulating assisted suicide was dangerous, and carries with it many philosophical mistakes. ‘Just because one wants to, doesn’t mean all should have,’ he stated in citing the flaw in moving from a particular desire for allowing assisted suicide to the general availability of it, noting: ‘one cannot legislate compassion. If we could, we’d have done it already’. Following him, Dr. Nitschkethe hammered into the idea that there has been a significant shift in dealing with euthanasia in the law since 1993 in England, when it was emphatically denounced. As someone who has himself performed assisted suicide, he roused the audience and Dr. Fitzpatrick when he asserted that if you can’t change it, ‘you have shit.’ Dr. Fitzpatrick, who is disabled, asked, ‘Is my life shit?’ to approval and cheers from the audience. Finishing the debate was the last student speaker, Séamus Beirne, who used an interesting analogy about missing a bus on your way to a concert to convey a facet of assisted suicide. He noted that just because one country allows it doesn’t mean that it sets the precedent, and ended the debate on a strong note when he voiced that if it becomes legal, ‘there will be victims.’
In the end, the audience passed the motion. However, the entire debate was one in which all aspects of the issue were presented. Orations ranged from appeals to emotion, to appeals to logic, graced with strong arguments throughout. Though Terry Pratchett was arguably the focal point of the debate, the entire night was made electric by each orator’s ability to speak so frankly on such a controversial topic.
