Assisted suicide

In her book All That Remains: a Life in Death, Scottish forensic scientist Dame Sue Black predicts that assisted suicide will eventually be legalised.

She warns that the desperate attempts by people dying in extremis or their loved ones to end the nightmare without professional help can be “traumatic and violent”.

Physician-assisted suicide for an adult in a rational state of mind, whose terminal suffering is unbearable despite medical efforts, is surely an idea whose time has come. We spend our lives making decisions which govern our fate so why should strangers’ morals and standards govern the way we die?

Medicine keeps us healthy and living longer, but far too often as a parish minister I saw it getting in the way of nature’s merciful release.

Religious leaders may prevent their own people from accepting help, but they’ve no right to block the escape hatch for others. (REV DR) JOHN CAMERON

Howard Place, St Andrews