Sir, – How edifying that Michael Healy-Rae TD, chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Assisted Dying, and fellow members Robert Troy TD and Senator Rónán Mullen, did not allow protocol to trump conscience. Going against the thrust of the “majority report”, and to evident anger in some political quarters, they recommended, in a minority report, that the existing ban on assisted dying should be maintained, and that no change be made to the Criminal Law Suicide Act 1993 (News, March 20th).
This small and dissenting voice speaks for the conscience of many in the health professionals and the electorate at large.
In such circumstances, it is pertinent to recall the words of the 19th-century American philosopher, poet and environmentalist Henry David Thoreau: “Must the citizen even for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think we should be men first and subjects afterwards.” – Yours, etc,
MARY ELLEN HAWKEY,
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Wexford.