Medical Ethics Expert says "freedom of speech is dead in Ireland"
Sunday Times report on April 12, 2009 - by Richard Oakley
'Mob' silences mercy death debate. Medical expert claims protesters' block on euthanasia talk bodes ill for free speech. Cork protesters stifled free speech, claims Doyal who likened the scene to the 1960s civil rights protests.
An expert in medical ethics who was prevented by angry crowds from speaking at a lecture on euthanasia in Cork has said "freedom of speech is dead in Ireland".
Len Doyal, an emeritus professor at the London School of Medicine and Dentistry and St Bartholemew`s, has described being "verbally threatened" and confronted by a "mob". He said he had seen nothing like it since taking part in civil rights marches in the American Deep South in the 1960s.
"What happened at the event was not a protest, the people weren`t protesting. It was an angry mob venting hate," Professor Doyal said. "I have spoken all over the world many times and not come across anything like this since my days in the civil rights movement in 1960s America. It is shocking that these people succeeded in stopping me from speaking. What does this say about freedom of speech in Ireland? They know now that they can do it again."
Last Thursday night Doyal was due to give a talk and take part in a discussion on euthanasia organised by Cork University Hospital`s ethics committee. The event had to be cancelled after disruption caused by protesters who comprised three-quarters of the 150 people in attendance. Doyal was escorted from the hall by security guards.
"I was in disbelief," he said. "I was there to debate, but the mob was beyond reason. I was compared with Hitler, called a Nazi and a murderer, and there were people reciting the rosary at me. One young man stood over me and told me that I would be stopped if I tried to speak. [It] was a verbal threat, although he didn`t quite state how he would stop me."
Gardai were called after the podium was taken over by a protester who claimed Cork University Hospital was selling out the `sick and old` people of Ireland.
The professor had planned to argue that laws on euthanasia should be changed. "It is common practice, in cases where patients are severely brain damaged and approaching the end of their lives, for doctors to withdraw treatment [with] the effect of foreshortening these people`s lives. When this happens, some patients can live for a period of time and they can suffer," he said. "My position is if doctors have already taken a decision to foreshorten these people`s lives, then morally what is the point in letting them die in pain?"
Doyal asked if doctors are making such decisions for `incompetent persons` why do the majority of countries prevent competent people from making a similar decision for themselves.
"Why on earth should competent people end up in the ridiculous situation whereby they have to travel to countries where euthanasia is legal?"
Kathy Sinnott, an independent MEP and disabilities campaigner, asked the Health Service Executive not to facilitate the debate, but had planned to attend Doyal`s lecture. He had left by the time she arrived. "I would not approve of what happened," she said. Sinnott wants a debate on how people can be given better palliative care to ensure they don`t suffer when they are terminally ill. She said other ill people should be supported and their lives given `affirmation`. "It is not a case of working out how best to kill people. It should be about working out how best to manage natural death without suffering," she said.
Sinnott has argued that euthanasia is supported by some governments because it cuts the medical cost of caring for terminally-ill people.