Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll begin with a question for Professor Downie.
Let's take someone experiencing cognitive degeneration who makes an advance request for medical assistance in dying. Clearly, a time will come when that person begins to lose what we call the attributes of personal life, such as self-awareness and relational capacity, not to mention existential suffering. When they have reached the terminal stage of the illness, let's say Alzheimer's disease, they would be only biologically alive, in a mostly vegetative state.
When an advance request has been made, should one wait until patients have reached this ultimate state to consider medical aid in dying morally acceptable, or can it be administered at an earlier stage in the disease, based on criteria specified by the patients themselves?