Hats off to the Royal College of Physicians’ (RCP) decision to go neutral on the issue of assisted dying (Report, 22 March). I have accompanied two very dear friends to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. They were both in the final stages of terminal illness, beyond the reach of palliative care, and were forced to go abroad like fugitives. Our society is exporting death and turning a political and ethical blind eye to it.
Assisted dying is supported by over 80% of people, and a change in the law is now on the agenda. However, the British Medical Association leadership opposes it, but refuses to survey its members. If the RCP can do it, why can’t the BMA?
Michael Murray
Matlock, Derbyshire
• Bishop Harries (Letters, 25 March) is arguing by analogy, and the basis of this false analogy is his personal belief that some higher power “gave us life”. The majority of citizens, who do not share this belief, must have the right to die at a time of their own choosing. It is ironic that the bishop sits in the House of Lords as a representative of an institution that places charity at the heart of its teachings. I write as an 88-year-old, quite incapacitated by serious illness and nearing the end of my life. What right has Bishop Harries to deny me a comfortable and dignified death in my own home? None!
Sue Atkins
Lewes, East Sussex
• The right reverend Harries is taking a liberty by trying to distinguish between a right and a liberty. The two are so closely synonymous that such an attempt would lead you down semantic culs-de-sac and linguistic side alleys. His analogy with a gift is also problematical, as life is something that is inexorably thrust upon us, and much of a shock it is, at a least in its early stages. But with luck and care, we begin to enjoy the wonders of its vagaries on this small planet. My life might be a delight, but it is my own – and not a gift – and there is no one to return it to, should it become a burden. I would merely relinquish it. My liberty. My right!
Jerry Stuart
London
• I fear that Rt Rev Richard Harries’s response to Simon Jenkins’s article on assisted dying will cut no ice with the many who consider that life arises simply from a random collision of sperm and ovum, rather than being a “gift” from some notional higher power. A terminally ill person has the right to wish to pre-empt a long-drawn-out and agonising death; there is no sense of “giving their life back” as one might return an unwanted Christmas gift, and any distinction between freedom and liberty is somewhat theoretical to say the least. His suggestion that they “don’t like … or grow tired of” their life is either uninformed or unkind.
Dr Brigid Purcell
Norwich
• Simon Jenkins’s case for euthanasia (Being allowed to end one’s life is the ultimate human right, 22 March) is as flawed as it is tired. Three examples will suffice.
Conflating intentional killing with foreseen life-shortening, he opens with the absurd claim that the principal cause of death in Britain is “premeditated killing” by doctors.
He asserts that discussion of the issue “remains taboo” in parliament. But parliament has debated the issue repeatedly and exhaustively over the past 25 years.
He thinks the evidence from abroad shows that regulatory concerns can be answered. My recent book Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy shows that the evidence does nothing of the sort.
Professor John Keown
Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington DC
• So, desires not to be a burden or psychological distress are good reasons for ending life? At least the forthright Simon Jenkins can admit this is where he wants, or hopes, things may move. This understandable thinking will, I’m afraid, misguidedly put unnecessary strain on vulnerable people to do the “decent thing” and make an exit.
Dr GD Warnes
Morton, Lincolnshire
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