Pro-Euthanasia Doctor Holds His First UK Suicide Workshop

Almost a hundred over-50s attended the meeting and watched video testimonies of people with terminal illnesses who went on to kill themselves. People wanted to know about options and about legislation affecting assisted suicides. Dr Nitschke, who is from Darwin, Australia and who founded the right-to-die organisation Exit International, intends to hold similar meetings in four other parts of England.

Obviously voluntary euthanasia is an emotive subject which attracts diametrically opposed views. Critics have claimed that supplying such information could influence vulnerable people towards committing suicide, while others are powerfully of the opinion that no-one should have to endure constant unbearable pain or live with indignities they find intolerably distressing when there is no possibility of improvement.

My personal view is that no-one should impose their views on another person who is wrestling with this dilemma; no-one should be 'sentencing' another person to suffer immeasurable pain and distress. I do not regard suicide in these situations as choosing to put an end to their life; I regard it as choosing to put an end to their pointless suffering. And I regard the many doctors and others who label this desire to end suffering 'depression' as foolish, cruel and insensitive. And I regard the many doctors who claim that intense pain can always be relieved or reduced by palliative care and drugs as ill-informed, patronising and dangerous.

Margaret Wilde http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/lettervera.html