Dr Paddy Leahy said yesterday that he was having to "rethink" his plan to end his own life in Thailand. Dr Leahy, who is in his 80s and suffering from cancer, left Ireland this month with the intention of ending his life in Thailand by euthanasia early next year.
But after interviews with him were published in The Irish Times and broadcast on RTE, the Thai Medical Council said it was opposed to "active euthanasia" and urged him to go home.
"I had come out here a little bit naive," Dr Leahy said yesterday. "I thought you could get a doctor, but no."
He had learned that his plan was running into difficulties when he visited the local hospital for a painkiller and a doctor referred to reports in the newspapers.
The view in Thailand was the equivalent of the view that "God gives life and only God can interfere with it. So euthanasia is frowned on here by the medical profession. I have to rethink about Thailand.
"I am hanging out until after Christmas anyway."
He is looking forward to the arrival of some of his golfing friends after Christmas. He added that he himself has limited mobility because of hip pains. "Pretty soon it's going to be the wheelchair."
In previous interviews Dr Leahy has suggested that he cannot contemplate life in a wheelchair.
Dr Denis Cusack, of the Division of Legal Medicine at University College Dublin, said yesterday that euthanasia was "against the law, the medical code and the overwhelming majority opinion."
There was a distinct difference, he said, between allowing a person to die by withdrawing medical treatment and actively helping a person to die.
In the Netherlands, where a doctor could help a patient to die under certain conditions, these conditions were not always complied with, he said.
Research presented at a recent conference in Dublin, he said, showed that of 12 people who died by euthanasia in Michigan, only three had a terminal or lifethreatening disease. These cases illustrated the dangers inherent in euthanasia.
People had genuine concerns about pain and about being left to suffer at the end of their lives. There were limits to healing and to effective relief of pain and suffering. These issues needed to be addressed.
In the meantime, he said, there was little evidence of any pressing public demand for euthanasia.