DEATH is inevitable (The public wants a say on euthanasia, Editorial; The ‘right to die’ is a fashionable nonsense, Comment, last week), and the process of dying deserves to be rationally debated. Terminal care in the NHS has, in my opinion, improved over the 20 years that I have been a GP (more options to access hospice and respite care). However, the advances in palliative care do not, in my view, answer all the needs of all those involved.

There are people to whom the symptoms of their particular progressive illnesses are so abhorrent (usually in terms of a loss of personality and/or loss of dignity) that they rationally wish to make a decision about their death. Why are we leaving them to travel to clinics abroad?

Amy Frederick
Durham

Fatal flaw
Dominic Lawson made relevant points in a reasoned statement that had nothing to do with religious belief. He dealt with facts rather than emotion and pointed to the dangers of where we are going. I hope it has made people think before they jump on the “right to die” bandwagon.

Geoff Screeton
Felinheli, Gwynedd

Dignity at the last
Lawson argues that a documentary should be commissioned to “look into the abyss” of legalising and regulating assisted dying for the terminally ill. Dignity in Dying would welcome such a documentary as research has found no evidence of abuse in countries that have introduced assisted-dying legislation.

At present in the UK, people are travelling abroad to die, there are “mercy killings”, botched suicides, people are starving and dehydrating themselves to death, and some doctors are already assisting their patients to die at great potential cost to their livelihood and freedom.

Put simply, within safeguards, and including screening for clinical depression, the state should not prevent those health professionals who are willing to help mentally competent dying adults exercise choice over the manner and timing of their death from doing so.

Sarah Wootton
Chief Executive
Dignity in Dying
London W1

Doctors’ views
Twelve polls of British Medical Association doctors between 1987 and 2004 showed support for assisted dying ranging from 30% to 60%. The 2005 conference representatives supported adopting a neutral stance (by 93 votes to 82). Even in 2006, when the BMA reverted to its former opposing position, a third of votes were still in favour (82 out of 253). Bearing in mind the BMA has in excess of 140,000 members, a vote involving one-eighth of 1% of them seems a poor basis for determining policy on an issue so important to patients as well as doctors.

Don Aston
Shirley, Solihull

Decision time
I am 80 years old and have had a very happy life. Dying is no problem - it’ll happen, regardless. The problem is the often long, drawn-out process of getting there. I hate the idea of, little by little, losing my faculties. I’d prefer to die at home, but if the great and the good deem otherwise, I’ll get myself to Switzerland.

Peter Woodcock
Melbourn, Cambridgeshire

It’s never easy
I am a veterinary surgeon, with more than 30 years’ experience, although I am now working for the NHS in an administrative and training role. In my experience, vets do not deal with euthanasia “with equanimity”. For myself, the act became more and more difficult as I got older. But I am in favour of ending suffering, in a humane manner.

However, I am totally opposed to euthanasia in humans. It is a different situation, and must be regarded as such. There is no excuse nowadays for anyone to suffer a painful or degrading end to life, and there are measures that should, and must, be put in place to ensure this does not happen. I am also convinced that the denial of fluid therapy to any patient is cruel, causes pain and should never be tolerated. I say this not only from my veterinary experience, but from living through the prolonged deaths of both my parents.

Elizabeth Watkins
Arundel, West Sussex

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