Recently, Prof. William Binchy, Emeritus Regius Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin spoke before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Assisted Dying and made a passionate and very persuasive appeal to TDs and Senators to oppose the push for euthanasia/assisted suicide to be legalised in Ireland.
Representing the Pro Life Campaign at the hearing, Mr Binchy told committee members:
“Having worked in law reform for nearly twenty years and represented the Irish Human Rights Commission during the formulation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it is my firm view that introducing physician-assisted suicide would breach the respect for the value of human life in a deep way, with damaging consequences for children, the aged, the infirm and people with mental disabilities. Society is not some empty abstraction. It is the cumulative experience of countless generations of flesh-and-blood people around the world. The sound judgment of society for millennia has been that we should protect life by not introducing a law of this kind.”
You can watch William Binchy’s 5-minute opening statement to the committee below: