Irish Right to Die Campaigner in NZ

Tom Curran, an Irishman whose terminally ill wife failed in a court bid for a doctor to help her die, is coming to New Zealand this week to talk about his campaign for medically-assisted dying.

His wife, Marie Fleming, who suffered multiple sclerosis for 25 years, took a landmark case to Ireland’s Supreme Court in 2013, arguing that she had a constitutional right to an assisted death because she was too disabled to end her own life.

The courts rejected her claim, but Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny described her as an “extraordinary woman … of impeccable courage and dignity”.

Tom is the European Coordinator of the right-to-die organisation Exit International and since Marie died in December 2013, he has worked with legislators in Dublin drafting the country’s first assisted dying Bill. The Irish Parliament is expected to vote on it this year.

Tom Curran will speak at a public meeting in the Wellington Central Library on Saturday, April 9, at 2pm.

He will speak at two meetings in Fairfield House, Nelson, on Tuesday, April 12, at 2pm and 7pm. All meetings are free and open to the public.

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