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Vicky Phelan’s words, pleading for a dignified death, were read from Dáil’s record tonight.
During a debate on the Dying With Dignity bill, Labor leader Alan Kelly read Limerick cancer activist’s petition on the record, where he asked TDs to put aside their own feelings on the issue and vote against to send the bill to a special committee. , as planned by the Government.
If the bill is sent to the all-party committee, it will be considered for one year.
“I don’t want to die,” says the plea.
“I am not choosing between living or dying. My cancer is incurable. The option to live will no longer be available to me in the not too distant future.
Deputy @alankellylabour @work – speech of October 1, 2020 https://t.co/naOVdmjWAO via @Youtube
– VideoParliament Ireland (@videoparliament) October 1, 2020
“I just want to be allowed the option to control the circumstances of my death in the same way that I have made decisions about my own life. Don’t let this matter fall by the wayside for another 12 months. Please.”
The debate also heard that it is “totally inappropriate” to combine the bill and assisted or intentional suicide.
People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny, who wrote and published it, told the camera that it was wrong to paint the proposal as an attack on vulnerable people.
The bill would allow those over 18 who cannot recover from their illness to dispose of a dignified death.
Two physicians, including an independent physician, would need to agree that the person meets the criteria.
However, opponents of the bill have criticized it for being similar to euthanasia or have combined it with suicide, Kenny criticized.
“We want more resources for palliative care and palliative care. But there is no contradiction in supporting this and the right of people who reach the end of their lives and suffer excruciating pain.”
Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the bill has “a number of legal and technical issues that require much greater consideration.”
“The last decade has seen this country make a series of significant social changes in a relatively short space of time. We don’t need to recount the old arguments today, but on every occasion, each of us took positions that were sincerely held and honesty argued.
“However, the decisions we made, from the introduction of the Pregnancy Life Protection Bill to the referendums to usher in marriage equality and repeal the Eighth Amendment, followed years of debate.”
Sinn Féin’s Martin Kenny called for the bill to go to committee stage.
However, independent TD Peter Fitzpatrick said he found it shocking that “vulnerable people were bombarded with stories about the legalization of assisted suicide.”
Next Wednesday there will be a vote on the bill.
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