Two UK Letters In Support of DWD

Two Letters from the UK in support of dying with dignity

Accepting Suicide

I AM the retired GP who helped Dave Richards travel to Zurich recently for a doctor-assisted suicide (News, November 19). With his advanced symptoms of Huntington's disease, he was determined to end his life this way - he had been in communication with Dignitas since June.

His final breakfast, on the day he died, consisted of two soft-boiled eggs, fruit salad, sweet semolina pudding, rolls, and English breakfast tea.

He would have preferred to have died in his home. And he could have lived longer had he not been forced to travel to Zurich while still able to make that journey.

Doctor-assisted suicide is possible—and widely accepted, with adequate safeguards—in Belgium, the Netherlands, Oregon and Switzerland. Are we so different from them?

Michael Irwin
Cranleigh, Surrey

Unfair Veto

As a widow of one of the 50-plus Britons who chose
voluntary euthanasia in Switzerland and as an atheist and a Parkinson's disease sufferer, I object strongly to the bishops being able to block a
bill which is significant for all the population, regardless of creed.

Shirley Crane
Sudbury, Suffolk

Sunday Times, 03 Dec 2006