Rights vs wrongs

I warmly support the Revd Dr John Cameron’s informed and reasoned article on the admissibility of assisted dying in certain cases (Scotsman 200, 8 February).

From the Christian perspective, there is a growing view that death is part of the gift of life and not a mistake. Death is as much a part of life as is birth. All life dies, albeit in its own timescale. Even our planet will die, and its parts will reform into something else.

While we have life it is good that we use it for the good of society, of the planet, as well as of ourselves. But when the time comes when we no longer can contribute to any of these, and when we are in insufferable and incurable pain and wanting to die, what can be wrong in lovingly assisting this dying wish?

Come on Christians, you say you believe in a better world where God, the maker of life and death, reigns. Are you afraid to go there? (REV) RALPH SMITH

Waverley Road, Eskbank, Dalkeith

Not least disappointing about Rev John Cameron’s tired reworking of the arguments over what is euphemistically called “assisted suicide” (though it actually entails a doctor “killing” his or her patient) is his casual designation of opponents as “ideologues” who merely “raise every sort of objection”. Is drawing attention to the danger that a “right to die” can, and in countries where the law has been relaxed, demonstrably does, become a “duty to die”, no more than “reciting a mantra” in his view? Also striking is his espousal of the view, in support of his case, that a mother has a “right to terminate her pregnancy”. Both euthanasia and abortion threaten precisely those members of soci- ety who are weakest and most vulnerable, so the strong can wash their hands of the inconvenience of their existence. JAMES BRUCE

Church Street, Berwick-upon-tweed