Sir, - While facts remain unclear, and without prejudice to their determination in individual cases, the reported case of suspected assisted suicide (The Irish Times, January 31st) is a most disturbing development in Ireland.
First thoughts and condolences must extend to the family and friends bereaved in tragic circumstances. Their loss, doubled by suicide, must be infinitely compounded by the possibility of "assistance" by strangers. Their ordeal will continue under the glare of inquiry that must now follow, and will not be helped by the prospect of a rush to engage in debate on the back of their personal circumstances.
Nevertheless, the situation so urgently needs comment that some must be made. Intractable suffering is utterly distressing to both sufferer and carer. Helplessness, desperation and failure to find relief bring intolerable mental strain, and for some, death affords the prospect of finality and release. Some choose suicide and some seek assistance if unable or too frightened to do this alone. As this is not easily found, people can now easily seek this further afield and the Internet provides the perfect opportunity for anonymous yet intimate sympathy. Compassion takes many guises and is often running low for those isolated and desperate from suffering. Faced with this reality, it is not for us to judge but to articulate boundaries and alternatives.
However, so sinister is the prospect that for money people would travel abroad to illegally assist someone to die by suicide, without deep knowledge or love for them, without recourse to their family, their views and the consequences for them, that this travesty of compassion must be vigorously repudiated and opposed. It offends all mitigating considerations, and sets a dangerous and corrosive precedent for all those challenged with trying to reduce the burden of suicide in our society.
So much more can be done than people realise to alleviate intractable suffering. Resistant depression in particular is a specialist field, and for many years Irish people have been quietly afforded effective treatment in the UK by their heath boards when national expertise has been exhausted. Despite this, some will obtain relief only by patience or serendipity, and where medicine fails, love sometimes provides.
Hope cannot or should not ever be extinguished. This is the message that needs voice at times like this, but legal sanctions should also be unequivocally imposed. Whatever debate follows and whatever guidelines evolve in this changing ethical climate, surely we must be clear and unambiguous that this kind of "assistance" cannot and never will be an acceptable solution. - Yours, etc.,
Dr JUSTIN BROPHY,
Chairman,
Irish Psychiatric Association,
Newcastle,
Co Wicklow.