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A Kerry mother whose teenage son lost his battle with cancer has told the Joint Committee on Assisted Dying that the introduction of assisted suicide or euthanasia in Ireland would “undermine the trust placed in doctors when it comes to end-of-life care.”
Tralee teenager Donal Walsh shot to prominence in 2013 for his campaigning against teenage suicide whilst battling Osteo Sarcoma, a terminal form of bone cancer.
As he underwent treatment, he began raising tens of thousands of euro for cancer treatment facilities. After writing a powerful piece about suicide among young people in Ireland, Donal appeared on RTE in 2013 and spoke of his appreciation for life.
During his interview, he contrasted his personal circumstances of wanting to get every second out of life with the lives of young people who had died by suicide, and the devastation caused to their families.
In the wake of his death in May 2013, Donal’s family established the Donal Walsh #Livelife Foundation to promote his campaigning against suicide. To date, the foundation has donated hundreds of thousands of euro to hospices, mental health facilities, and other teenage-focused initiatives around the country.
Speaking before the committee on Tuesday, Elma Walsh said that losing her 16-year-old son to cancer was “the exception in life.”
She said that from the moment he was diagnosed as being terminal, Donal had “lived with dying” and that his palliative care team “not only took Donal into their care, but they also looked after us as a family and individually.”
Quality of life
Ms Walsh told the committee members that palliative care in Ireland “should not be underestimated.”
“This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a terminal illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. This is what it did for Donal and ourselves, in Donal’s final and most important challenge,” she said.
She said that, if palliative care was turned “into something that it isn’t, by liking it with euthanasia”, it would be “to the detriment of living.”
Ms Walsh said that, for her, “any introduction of assisted suicide or euthanasia would undermine the trust placed in doctors when it comes to end-of-life care, they would be seen as death givers.”
“I fear what this committee could set in motion because if it removes the present legal requirement that doctors do what they can to save lives, the value of life will be significantly reduced,” she said.
“As we have seen in so many other countries the so-called ‘choice to die’ becomes the duty to die.”
She said the introduction of assisted suicide or euthanasia would lead to the “bizarre situation where on the one hand we are putting out messages of suicide prevention and on the other we would be offering it.
“For some, we will be saying your life is not living, suicide will be the expectation not an ‘option’.”
Palliative care, she said, allowed Donal to “spread a message of hope” by “telling young people that their life itself is valuable, no matter how uphill it may seem at the time.”
“We can all help fight against suicide by turning our back on assisted suicide. Our lives are for sharing to the end.”
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