The danger inherent in changing Britain’s laws on assisted dying

Sir – I received a lung cancer diagnosis in March 2018. It came with the opinion that I was likely to “succumb” within nine months.

However, I was then offered a course of immunotherapy with a newly available drug. Now, more than five years down the line, I am 81 years old and living a full and healthy life.

Thank goodness for three things: the wonderful NHS, an amazing and dedicated oncology team at my local hospital, and the fact that Dignitas was not an option (“Call for Parliament to re-examine laws on assisted dying”, report, December 20).

Mike Cobb

London SW20

Sir – My father and sister died slowly with dementia; my mother was left in a vegetative state after a severe stroke; and my husband died in agony with cancer.

I wish to avoid such a fate, and would like to have the option of arranging for my own peaceful demise after my affairs have been settled. I am 87, have had a full life and would not want it to be extended simply because the state said so.

Mary Wiedman

Piccotts End, Hertfordshire

Sir – Dr Tim Howard (Letters, December 6), making the case for Britain to follow countries that have legalised “assisted dying”, claims that “we allow individuals complete autonomy over all other moral decisions in their lives”.

Not so. The law rightly disallows various autonomous decisions, from marrying one’s sister to having a healthy limb amputated to purchasing cocaine.

As Baroness Onora O’neill has observed, legalising “assisted dying” would adopt a principle of indifference: “... in order to allow a few independent folk to get others to kill them on demand, we are to be indifferent to the fact that many less independent people would come under pressure to request the same.” Some choices, however autonomous, are bad for oneself and, if endorsed by law, dangerous to others.

Professor John Keown

Kennedy Institute of Ethics Georgetown University Washington DC, United States

Sir – After a stroke six years ago I have lost some use of my left arm and leg, and have to ask for help.

My wife of 55 years is wonderful with this; so are my children and grandchildren when they visit. It gives me a little insight into being totally needy.

If my situation changes, I do not want a doctor, a priest, a judge or a politician pontificating about it. The only people I trust to make a decision are my wife, my children and my adult grandchildren. These are the people I love, and I know that they would do the right thing.

David Martin

Little Baddow, Essex