WE hesitate to argue with Minette Marrin when she does such a good job of it herself.

She’s a convert to the campaign to legalise euthanasia, having put aside her previous concerns that “it could so easily be abused” (Comment, last week).

Apparently she feels the time is right for a change in the law because NHS spending on the elderly has risen significantly in recent years. She wants doctors to show older people the “exit” door and help them through it, if need be. No risk of abuse when the reason is to, er, help the health service balance its books.

Marrin chooses to ignore the potential for abuse. Older people’s need for protection from the unthinking lobby to legalise euthanasia is even stronger.

Dr Jane Campbell MBE
Roger Symes
Surbiton, Surrey

A PAINFUL PROSPECT: I am a 76-year-old pensioner suffering from prostate cancer, severe rheumatoid arthritis (three hip replacements), serious heart conditions (with pacemaker), blind in one eye due to an accident during one of the operations, and other minor complaints. Despite everything my quality of life has not been too bad over the past few years and I have been glad to be alive. Now the problems are starting to “gang up” on me and I am extremely worried that I may have to endure a very painful end in a hospital, which does concern me a great deal.

I am a strong supporter of euthanasia, as I am well aware of what may await me and others in the same predicament.

You will notice that it is usually the well and fit who, in their outlook of moral rectitude, decide that their fellow beings have to suffer an unnecessarily painful demise. I am very grateful to you for highlighting this current problem.

John Starling
Purley, Surrey

QUALITY OF LIFE: Why is it that advocates of euthanasia ignore the well-established benefits of palliative care and the hospice movement? At a time when parliament is about to debate euthanasia, telling just half the truth is both disingenuous and misleading.

Dr John Ling
Author of The Edge of Life: Dying, Death and Euthanasia Aberystwyth

DYING WITH DIGNITY: Marrin does not adequately reflect the consideration and care given by GPs in treating patients who are terminally ill. The Royal College of General Practitioners (with more than 23,000 members) is opposed to a change in legislation that would permit assisted dying.

We believe that with current improvements in palliative care, good clinical care can be provided within existing legislation and that patients can die with dignity.

Dr Mayur Lakhani
Chairman, RCGP London

STILL CONTRIBUTING: I agree with Marrin regarding control over our deaths. However, I am sick to death of people maligning the elderly as burdens on society. We hundreds of thousands of us pay council tax and income tax and do not scrounge off the state like many young people. What happened to all the pension money that should have been invested for our pensions so that the existing earning generation could have theirs, in turn, invested for their future? Successive governments have a lot to answer for.

Marion Thomas
Eastbourne, East Sussex