The majority of people do not want the introduction of euthanasia, the president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr Neil Brennan, said yesterday. An Irish campaigner for euthanasia, Dr Paddy Leahy, who has cancer and has travelled to Thailand where he intends to end his own life, said before leaving Ireland that he had been involved in at least 50 cases of euthanasia and had referred scores of other people to doctors willing to help them die.
He said he knew of at least one doctor in each county willing to perform euthanasia.
The issue should be left to the "common sense" of doctors and their patients, rather than being brought into law, said Dr Leahy.
Dr Brennan said he respected Dr Leahy's personal views on the controversial issue and his "very seriously taken decision" to end his own life. However, he said the Irish Medical Organisation was strongly opposed to euthanasia and he expressed doubt at Dr Leahy's claims about the number of Irish doctors who were willing to perform it.
"It is a very difficult area, but in so far as there are minority opinions and some people are more liberal than others, I am not aware of any particular network of people in medical circles who would be prepared to do it," said Dr Brennan.
The introduction of "living wills", which would allow patients to give personal directions as to their medical care while they were alive should be explored more thoroughly, he said. At present the legal status of such documents was unclear.
"It is a very narrow line between this and euthanasia, but I don't think the bulk of people want euthanasia. I have heard of no ground-swell of opinion for it," said Dr Brennan.
Dr Leonard Condren, medical editor of Forum, the journal of the Irish College of GPs, said there was a growing tendency for the law to intervene in the doctor/ patient relationship. This had been demonstrated in the X case, C case and the "right to die" case, and "rather than clarifying matters it invariably made things worse".
However, the euthanasia debate was now moving away from the conduct of the doctor in such cases to the "control of the patient", he told The Irish Times.
"I have a strong belief that doctors and their patients are highly moral people and, with the exception of the minority of the criminal few, these ethical decisions are better left in the context of a patient discussing them with a doctor they trust."
Dr Condren expressed his support for the concept of a "living will", but in extreme circumstances people may find their previously expressed wishes are frustrated.
"There is something rather obscene about a rational adult making a living will stating what they wish to happen to them and that wish being frustrated subsequently," he said.
"For that person to be trapped on a respirator, or being kept alive against their personally expressed will, would be obscene."