June 8, 2016

Tom Curran Admits Helping Dozens Die

Irish Times, Sorcha Pollak & Ruadhán Mac Cormaic

Tom Curran, the partner of the late right-to-die campaigner Marie Fleming has said in an interview with the Irish Examiner that he helped dozens of seriously and terminally ill people plan their deaths with loved ones.

Mr Curran also admitted that he still fears a Garda investigation into his role in assisting his wife to die in December 2013.

When Fleming died, Mr Curran announced his wife had died peacefully at home after her condition deteriorated.

“In some ways, to me it only feels like a couple of months ago,” Mr Curran told the Irish Examiner.

“It doesn’t feel like two and a half years because it’s still quite an intense feeling.”

“Marie got her wish, which was to die peacefully, and we’re at peace now with her euthanasia death but there’s always that fear of the law and that’s why it needs to be changed.”

‘It had to come out’

Mr Curran said he was worried about how an Garda would react to his admission of playing a role in assisting with his wife’s death following the prosecution and acquittal of Gail O’Rorke last year on charges of trying to assist the death of her close friend. He risks up to 14 years in jail for assisting his wife to die.

“It had to come out, otherwise, to a certain extent, what Marie fought for is a waste.”

Fleming, a university lecturer who was in the final stages of multiple sclerosis when she died, had gone to court to be lawfully assisted to have a peaceful death at a time of her choosing without putting loved ones who helped her at risk of prosecution.

In 2013 both the High Court and the Supreme Court rejected her challenge to the Criminal Law (Suicide) Act of 1993 which decriminalised suicide but made it a criminal offence to assist another person to take their own life.

Fleming had argued that, as a severely disabled person unable to take her own life unaided, the law disproportionately infringed her personal autonomy rights under the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Tom Curran, who cared for his wife for more than 15 years as she battled with multiple sclerosis, told the Irish Examiner on Monday that the current legal situation ignored the fact that some people facing terminal illnesses were secretly arranging to end their lives.

He said he had helped around 200 people, primarily in Ireland and England, make plans to die with the use of medication that is banned in Europe and must be imported illegally. He added that he had turned down many others who were “irrationally suicidal”.

“I’m extremely careful about who I help. I know it’s my own personal judgment rather than a team of experts, but there are a lot of people that I just say ‘sorry’ to and I suggest that you go and talk to your doctor.

“These would be people who were irrationally suicidal. I have almost pleaded with them to make contact with the health or support services.”

Mr Curran, who is now Europe co-ordinator for the campaign group, Exit International, believes assisted suicide could actually reduce the number of suicides among the general public.

“If it was legal then these people would be approaching their GPs and legally requesting help to die and they would be caught earlier and they would be able to get help to live.”

Allowing terminally ill people to plan their death gives them an “insurance”, said Mr Curran.

“They’re concerned about a bad death, they’re concerned about not being in control, they’re concerned that their death will be long drawn out, painful and very difficult for the people around them, and once they get that control in their own hands, they relax and get on with living.

“That’s what happened with Marie. When Marie decided not to go to Dignitas, that she’d make a plan here, we got five more years of life together, a wonderful five years.

“Most people think I go around helping people die all the time but I put more effort into helping people live,” he said. “To me it’s a matter of choice. If a person wants to live they deserve every help to do that and to be as comfortable as possible while they’re living.”

“But if they want to die, that’s a legitimate choice as well and they should be given the same level of assistance and acceptance to do that.”

Last December Independent TD John Halligan introduced the Dying With Dignity Bill – a private members bill removing any criminal sanctions against a family member or doctor who assists a suicide.

Last month Mr Halligan expressed frustration that the bill had been “lost in the lottery system”.

Mr Curran does not expect the new Government to address the issue of assisted death in the near future.

“The way the Government is now, they will not want to tackle anything that is in any way controversial. This will be the quietest Dáil for a long time because anything controversial could bring it down.”