Mahatma Gandhi’s assertion that the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members is especially tested when we are confronted by those who wish to die but need assistance in doing so.
Gail O'Rorke came to the attention of gardaí when they were informed by the manager of Rathgar Travel that a group of people intended to travel to Dignitas, the Zurich euthanasia clinic. When Gail O'Rorke went to collect the tickets, gardaí were waiting for her.
Four years later, on a bright spring day in April 2015, O'Rorke went on trial, accused of assisting her friend Bernadette Forde, who was suffering from a severe form of multiple sclerosis, with ending her life. Bernadette Forde had been found dead in her Dublin home in June 2011.
O’Rorke pleaded not guilty to the charges. She became the first person to be prosecuted under the Criminal Law (Suicide) Act 1993, which decriminalised suicide but made it an offence to assist another person to end their life.
Crime or Compassion? One Woman's Story of a Loving Friendship That Knew No Bounds is O'Rorke's very personal account of the events that lead to her trial and acquittal. It tells the story of an unlikely and intense friendship between two women, the brutality of debilitating illness, and the events that unfolded when one decided to end her own life and asked her friends to assist.
One woman’s wish
O’Rorke tells this story in a very familiar, conversational tone with an attention to detail that takes readers into the lives of people who are grappling with one woman’s wish to die and her friend’s desire to help.
However, this very individual and personal account at times obscures the enormity of the issue at the heart of Crime or Compassion? – assisted suicide. This story throws up many challenges especially when we widen the lens to consider the implications of assisted suicide for greater society.
The right to die already exists in Ireland. Suicide is legal, as it is for adults to refuse medical treatment that may prolong their lives. These rights that safeguard the autonomy of the individual are well established.
However, one of the great challenges we face as a society is when we ask other people to assist in ending life. This is a moral and ethical Rubicon. This moral and ethical Rubicon is at the crux of the individual story told by O’Rorke, but regrettably remains largely unarticulated.
In other countries, assisted suicide has been legal for many years. The Dutch were the first to legalise it in 2002, but only for people who were considered to be suffering unbearable pain and with no hope of a cure. Proponents argue that when there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect the vulnerable, citing the Netherlands as an example, the right of the individual to choose to die can be provided for.
Those opposed cite recent developments in the Netherlands as clear evidence of the slippery slope. For example, the Dutch health and justice minister plans to draft a law to extend assisted suicide to people who consider they have “completed life” but are not necessarily terminally ill.
Neatly undivided
The debate is complex and not neatly divided along traditional liberal versus conservative lines. It is not a simple split between those who advocate morality versus personal autonomy, or the religious right versus the liberal left.
Many disability activists warn of potential dangers for the vulnerable should the right to die ideology be advanced. They argue that the absolute right to die would only benefit the well positioned in society and leave the vulnerable even more vulnerable. By contrast, Desmond Tutu, the anti-apartheid activist and emeritus archbishop of Cape Town, reasserted his call for assisted suicide on the recent occasion of his 85 birthday.
The ethical and moral conundrum that underpins O'Rorke's story arises because of the tension inherent in attempting to balance legislation that supports individual autonomy while also fostering a society that protects our most vulnerable. In Crime or Compassion?, we are confronted by this vulnerability but find no easy answers.
Paul D’Alton is head of the department of psycho-oncology at St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin.
