The Rev George Exoo insists that he did not "assist" in the death of Rosemary Toole, but attended it to provide a dying woman with "spiritual direction".
The minister of the small Unitarian-Universalist congregation in this old coal town of West Virginia, is back home among his flock of a couple of dozen, and mystified by all the fuss, as is the congregation.
"She sought help. I said 'here I am'," he said yesterday of Rosemary Toole Gilhooly, whose suicide in Dublin , and his role in it, have provoked huge controversy. Dr Exoo, a member of the the US pro-euthansia group Hemlock, with the sympathetic understanding of his congregation, runs an organisation called the Compassionate Chaplaincy from his home in the town. The group is dedicated to helping the grievously ill to cope with their pain and to face death if that is the path they choose.
He confirmed that Ms Toole Gilhooly paid him $2,500 in total for expenses for himself and his partner, Mr Thomas McGurrin, to pay for hotels, flights and other expenses.
He acknolwedges his role in the death in very precise terms as a counsellor and not an active participant in the act - "George is no Jack Kevorkian", one of his congregation insists, in a reference to the doctor who has made a name for himself with his suicide machines.
Dr Exoo says he was contacted originally by a fellow-member of a right-to-die group and denies any suggestion that the contact was through the Internet.
"If George has to go before the authorities in Ireland," Dr Exoo says of himself, "he will go with a free and open conscience". And he deplores what he calls the lack of compassion of Irish law that would not "recognise her pain and honour her wish."
He spoke yesterday to his congregation and a couple of visiting journalists at the informal weekly Sunday service of a fine and intelligent woman who had made up her mind and prepared for her death. She was "cheerful" at the prospect, he said, describing her death as "a blessing to her". "Are you sure?" he asked her. Yes.
And she was not doing it, he insisted, for financial reasons as she was well-insured. She was in constant pain.
She had read up on the subject in considerable detail, and had bought in enough supplies to kill a roomful of people. She was not going to make a mistake, she insisted.
He says that his role in the actual mechanics of the suicide consisted in advising her she did not need to mix the medication in an apple sauce to make it palatable and at one point warning her that if she was to succeed she should now put out her cigarette and cover her face with the plastic bag that contained the gas.
After she had taken the fatal cocktail of medication, he says, "what she wanted was a cigarette". Noticing that she was becoming drowsy "I said 'It's time for the bag'. I wanted it to be a success. If she fell asleep and didn't die. . . Helium speeds the process."
Dr Exoo rejects media reports that Rosemary Toole Gilhooly was "only" suffering from depression. "She never used the word 'depression'," he insists and says that she was afflicted by an incurable medical condition in the brain whose name "I can no longer remember, it begins with a C". The condition, involving an enzyme deficiency, necessitated an implant in her chest which sent pulses to the brain.
"She had been miserable for years, was in constant pain." She looked forward eagerly to her death, he says.
Dr Exoo argues there is no contradiction between the right to take one's own life and a belief in the sanctitity of life. There is no Biblical prohibition, he says, and in the many references to suicide "none of those involved are condemned".
"Jesus ministered to people's pain," he says, "he was a vehicle of compassion".
He says the Unitarians believe that in recognising the centrality of the worth and dignity of each and every human, they also should recognise their autonomy and right to dispose of themselves too.
"I would not do anything that would condemn people to a life of eternal punishment," he insists and finds reassurance in scientific research on people with near-death experiences. Those who have attempted to take their lives, he argues, and get a glimpse of the next life in such near-death experiences do not perceive punishment or pain.
He also takes comfort from the "signs" those who have been helped give after death that they are now in heaven. It is something he always suggests to the dying and Rosemary Toole Gilhooly said she would send roses.
The next day he and Mr McGurrin were walking through Amsterdam when they were brushed by a man carrying "four dozen roses", says Dr Exoo. "More like six," his companion corrects him.
