Assisted suicide

I agree with the Rev Dr Donald M. Macdonald that assisted suicide is suicide (Letters, 28 July); however as suicide is not a crime then neither should be mutually willing, open and unpressured assistance.

I see no virtue in sitting on one’s hands while a terminal cancer patient screams in agony or is doped into unconsciousness. Mr Macdonald, being a “man of the cloth”, knows that Our Lord went willingly to his death and did not refuse such palliative care as was made available to him; and assisted suicide is the ultimate in palliative care.

The Bible records amazement that Jesus died so quickly. It seems an excellent precedent to me.

TIM FLINN Garvald, East Lothian