Dear Editor, It is ironic that the so-called Dying with Dignity bill was introduced into the Dáil during palliative care week. Several professionals from the hospice and palliative care sector have warned that this bill is a ‘Trojan horse’ which will ruin our current gold standard of end of life care, where the patient, family…
Notebook I was in your house the day they brought you home. I watched your two-year-old sister and wondered what was going through her mind. I saw your mother, glad to be home but tired too, having carried you so lovingly, through those long months of waiting, and now sharing you with a world that,…
Among the new restrictions announced by Taoiseach Micheál Martin this week was a limit of ten people at a funeral in the Republic. In the North, funerals are limited to 25. The restriction to ten people at a funeral was cruel and – mercifully – quickly changed. At the same time that only ten people…
One of the most mendacious aspects of the Dying with Dignity bill, it seems to me, is calling it ‘dying with dignity’. It is an assisted suicide measure, and if truth meant anything in the public realm, that is what it should be called. ‘Dying with dignity’ is a propaganda phrase which deliberately implies that…
The View Last week the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference published a message to the Faithful entitled ‘Do not lose heart’. A day later it was reported that the four Catholic archbishops of Ireland had requested a meeting with the Taoiseach to address the current restrictions that prevent the celebration of public masses. The news gave…
Nothing has had a more formative influence upon Ireland and Europe than Christianity, writes David Quinn State-run secondary schools are set to end a policy of Christian-only symbols on their walls, put the celebrations of other religions on a par with Christian celebrations such as Christmas, and end compulsory attendance at school Masses. The news…
Medicine traditionally recognises that human life is a basic good, and that patients come to doctors for healing and the restoration of health, writes Fr Seán MacGiollarnáth O. Carm. In 1997, John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin and other philosophers submitted a brief to the US Supreme Court which called for assisted suicide. Paul Weithman, their colleague,…
It is just over a month since People before Profit TD Gino Kenny launched and sponsored the Dying with Dignity Bill, continuing the efforts of former TD John Halligan to see assisted suicide legalised in Ireland. The bill is entitled ‘An Act to make provision for assistance in achieving a dignified and peaceful end of…
Given that the right to life follows from the dignity that we have in virtue of being human, it is inconsistent with human rights law that the life of any human being can be taken away by appeal to such dignity, writes Dr Gaven Kerr The Dying with Dignity Bill – which passed the first…
Letter from Rome Fans of the TV show The West Wing probably remember an episode in which an internal White House memo is leaked to the press accusing President Josiah Bartlett of timidity and compromising his positions to placate critics. In response, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry crafts a strategy of ‘Let Bartlett be Bartlett’,…
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
Maria Steen
David Quinn
John L. Allen Jr.