I always enjoy Camilla Cavendish’s column in FT Weekend. I do not always agree with everything she writes but in her piece on the assisted dying debate (Opinion, FT.com, February 15), every single word is irrefutable. I believe that we all should be asking not “How can we protect the vulnerable?” but “What would I want for myself?”
Our children — I am 82 — have no right to leave us to suffer palliative care merely to ease their consciences. Captain Oates — one of the crew on Scott’s expedition to the Antarctic — is honoured because he hastened his inevitable death by walking out into the icy storm.
Why should I not have the freedom to choose to relieve my children of the burden of watching me die a slow and miserable death?
I have a strong and simple Christian faith and a belief in the loving mercy of God, evidenced in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. It was Jesus who said there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. That is good enough for me.
Diana Dobson
Monkton Farleigh, Wiltshire, UK
