Published: 2 January, 2012

• I endorse Katherine Lennard’s views on assisted suicide (January 19).

It is unbelievable that in this day and age we have still not managed to enact legislation allowing each individual to decide his or her own fate, that is, to be helped to commit suicide if one is suffering from a painful, disfiguring fatal illness that destroys human dignity and any possible enjoyment or interest in this precious life. 

I neither wish to burden loved ones nor do I want to waste hard-earnt money that would be far more beneficial and useful to those starting out in life.

I feel sure that the public at large has similar views.

Certainly all my friends share my sentiments.

According to my solicitor the law still does not recognise any living will or other similar attempts to choose how one wishes to leave this world. 

I resent the idea that the UK government is still the final arbiter in this matter. 

I am well aware that the Holocaust has made any whiff of euthanasia deeply suspect but surely it can’t be beyond the wit of man to draw up foolproof legislation that enables all sane adults to decide their own fate?

I have lived many years in India and trying to explain our predicament to the average Indian is very difficult. Indians do not need assisted suicide: either they die young and poor from preventable diseases or they decide they have lived long enough and stop eating and drinking, a form of self-induced suicide that has a long tradition.

No doctor whisks them into hospital to be force fed.

I hope that Katherine Lennard is spared what she rightly calls the “absurd cruelty” of our legislation and is allowed to die with dignity in her own home.

Elizabeth Hoddy
Address supplied