Letters: Euthanasia

The right to die, and the right of the dying to palliative care

Sir, Congratulations to The Independent for campaigning for voluntary euthanasia ("The right to choose death", 8 May). Two myths need to be destroyed.

First, in my nearly 40 years as a general practitioner I never met a case where the relatives urged euthanasia on an elderly relative; it just does not happen. The converse is sometimes true; the elderly relative may wish to relieve the burden (real or perceived) on the caring relatives.

Second, the myth that doctors are there to prolong life; they are not. Their prime purpose is to relieve suffering; if life is prolonged as a result, well and good. The medical profession has got these ideals confused.

Most cases of terminal cancer do not as a rule need euthanasia; they are looked after brilliantly by the hospices, but a final termination is in sight. It is those suffering from severe strokes, multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease etc, where life may go on indefinitely, who deserve our sympathy and help.

Lastly, may I urge everyone to make an "advance directive" or "living will" and give it to their GP and lawyer; the laws may change, as I hope they will as a result of efforts such as yours, when such directives will become highly relevant.

DR P D HOOPER

CHALE, ISLE OF WIGHT

Sir: The United Kingdom's Disabled Peoples Council sees no need to introduce assisted dying legislation in the UK. We need to look at the circumstances which disabled people find themselves in when wanting the desire to die.

The individuals in some recently publicised cases were relying on 24-hour support seven days a week by their partner with no or minimal assistance provided by public services. Such circumstances can make disabled people feel a burden on their families.

Whilst disabled people experience pain, there is excellent palliative care which allows one to live with dignity during the terminal stages of a life-limiting illness. The problem is that there is not enough of the provision which ought to give disabled people greater quality of life. We fear if assisted dying becomes legal, disabled people will be under more pressure to consider assisted dying rather than palliative care and independent living support.

SIMONE ASPIS

UKDPC, DERBY

What Scottish vote means for England

Sir: I believe in an English parliament, as a voluntary abstention at Westminster by non-English MPs will never occur. Apart from the obvious democratic benefits, I believe it will silence the whingeing of many who seem to resent any Scot in positions of power.

The current Chancellor is usually referred to with the prefix "Scottish" (in contrast to Norman Lamont, who never was, owing to his generic accent, his constituency was in Surrey where I once lived, and an Ayrshire surname erroneously pronounced in a Norman French way). Gordon Brown is the Chancellor because he is British, but many in southern Britain do not want him to become Prime Minister simply because he is Scots. In my opinion, there is no over-representation of Scots in the government, but the West Lothian question needs resolution.

The Scots are as British as the Welsh, Northern Irish and the English. If Scotland wants to break from the Union, all four home countries should vote in favour of it. However, the only logical argument for independence can be economic rather than emotional. The rest of the UK could suffer economically if Scotland achieves independence. To become financially effective, Scotland would attract investment at the expense of the rest of the UK by drastically cutting corporate taxation (similar to Ireland). I wonder if this situation is why the main political parties oppose vehemently Scottish independence.

DR MARTIN BUCHAN

QUARRIERS VILLAGE, INVERCLYDE

Sir. Journalists and one or two of your letter writers seem to have got matters slightly out of proportion. So the SNP won one more seat than Labour, but the fact is that the majority of voters in Scotland did not vote for the SNP. It is a gross assumption that Scots would vote for independence. I would like to see the Lib Dems agree to a referendum so that we could establish the wishes of the Scots beyond doubt.

I trust, however, that any such a referendum would include the many Scots resident in England. Although I am someone born south of Britain living in the south I agree completely with professor Tom Simpson (letter, 7 May) that we see too much anti-Scottishness in some southern newspapers. I see myself as a citizen of Great Britain and I am perfectly happy to be governed by a British parliament regardless of what part of Britain its members may have come from. I have no wish to see the Union further dismantled by the establishment of an English parliament.

RON WATTS

WRETTON, NORFOLK

Sir: At long long last, can we now hope that on the recognition of the Adam Smith Institute that England should have its own parliament, that the people elected to serve the people will now address this issue. All the English have ever asked for is parity and justice not the break-up of the Union, which will be the conclusion of the débâcle that is devolution in its present form. How can the English be denied this when the other partners all have self governance?

SHEILA WHITE

POTTERS BAR, HERTFORDSHIRE

Sir: The reason why some English people object to having Gordon Brown as Prime Minister (letters, 7 May) is that, since devolution, he will in many areas of policy be able to put forward, and vote for, laws affecting England even though he would not be able to propose, or vote for, identical laws affecting his own constituents. An important aspect of democratic accountability is thus absent. That he is by nationality a Scot is incidental; what is important is that he sits north of the border.

ALEX SWANSON

MILTON KEYNES

Sir: The people in Scotland have voted, or at least tried to vote. Some 100,000 ballot papers were not counted as they were not completed correctly and now it is suggested that this undermines the process and results.

But the vast majority of people did understand some simple instructions and made their political wishes known. A system which results in a parliament freely chosen by the majority but excluding the few illiterates should be seen as a successful outcome. Perhaps England can learn something from this example, which is likely to produce a higher calibre of representative.

LAURENCE KELVIN

LONDON W9

Turkey's Islamists will not go away

Sir: It's all very well for Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (7 May) and her Turkish friend to moan about Islamism in Turkey, but what do they suppose they can do about it?

It seems the secularists have kept Mr Gul from being president, but he or someone like him will be back. What happens when the AK gets a two-thirds majority and can elect a president? Or when the constitution gets changed and an AK president is directly elected? Or when someone becomes president and his wife adopts the hijab after he takes office? Will he resign? I doubt it.

Of course there's always the doomsday option of soldiers marching in to "dissolve the people and elect a new one", but what then? These military regimes don't last for ever. Sooner or later civilian rule will come back, and the AK, even if banned, will reappear under another name. So Turkey will be back where it started.

Sorry Yasmin, but as far as I can see the mosque is outlasting Kemalism much as the Russian Orthodox Church has outlasted Soviet Communism. We all hope that that Muslims will learn not to take orders from radical mullahs, but that means they won't take orders (about their headgear or anything else) from Turkish generals either - or even from columnists in The Independent.

MICHAEL W STONE

PETERBOROUGH

Reasons for the bloodbath in Iraq

Sir: Let me see if I have understood correctly the argument put forward by James Baring (letters, 3 May). Those who opposed the war in Iraq, who said it would cause massive civil unrest and an increase in terrorism both there and here in the UK, these people are guilty of not preventing - or at least mitigating - a bloodbath: the very bloodbath that they had marched in their millions to warn against.

Mr Baring also suggests that those that argued against this war had no alternative plan. Well I suppose it all depends upon which of Tony Blair's many revisions for the reasons for war Mr Baring is asking about.

If it is the original reason, the threat of WMD, then those who opposed the war did have an alternative: just let Mr Blix and his fellow weapons inspectors carry out their task - as they were asking, pleading, to do. If that alternative to war had been allowed to proceed then the inspections team would have found that there were no WMD - as their reports were already indicating - and so no reason to go to war and the following bloodbath would not have happened.

Of course, if Mr Baring is talking about the Blair revision that the war was all about getting rid of Saddam Hussein for "humanitarian reasons", may I remind him that Blair stated that Hussein could stay if he gave up his WMD (non-existent though they may have been).

M S LANE

WEST BROMWICH, WEST MIDLANDS

Lessons learnt at a comprehensive

Sir: Like Doraine Potts (letter, 5 May) my mother was educated at Christ's Hospital in the 1950s. Whatever values were inculcated in her there, they resulted in a firm belief in state education for her own children.

If my brother and I "caught anything nasty" from the local comprehensive, alongside the raft of academic qualifications it gave us (we've gone on to acquire five and a half degrees between us to date, including several from Oxbridge), I'd like to think that at least the infection didn't include the propensity to make ill-informed and offensive judgements about an education system of which we had no personal experience.

THE REV R C WILLIAMS

LEICESTER

Infertile couples wait for donors

Sir: London Fertility Centre accepts that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has figures which indicate that more sperm donors have been registered in the past year since the anonymity laws were introduced (Deborah Orr, 5 May), however the actual reserves of sperm remain at crisis levels.

LFC, like many other centres, has embarked on an intensive advertising campaign which yields many calls, but the actual number of sperm donors falls well short of the required number. Many infertile couples are still waiting for suitable donors to come forward, donate and give consent for their sperm to be used.

We believe what the HFEA has failed to do is provide comparative figures for the number of women waiting for donor sperm in the same period. Has this figure gone up? Are more or fewer people waiting? And is the 6 per cent increase in donors sufficient to cover the already large numbers of couples who are waiting? We would be sceptical that this would be the case. Additionally, the figures do not supply information on couples who have become frustrated and left the UK system to seek treatment abroad.

LFC believes that the current financial incentive for donors of both sperm and eggs is insufficient and the nominal figure (£250 per cycle including expenses) should be increased to reflect the personal commitment involved in donating either sperm or eggs.

This financial restriction makes importing sperm from international sources difficult as the regulation applies to all sperm used within the UK. We believe that a substantial increase in the financial payment could help increase the number of donors and hopefully alleviate the waiting time for couples who need sperm, and indeed eggs, to fulfil their dream of becoming parents.

PROFESSOR IAN CRAFT

DIRECTOR DAVID HODGSON MEDICAL DIRECTOR LONDON FERTILITY CENTRE LONDON W1

Your packaging has arrived

Sir: How's this for excess packaging? I ordered a pair of small earrings on the internet from the US Library of Congress Shop. The cost of shipping was $15. They arrived by FedEx.

The packaging consisted of a cardboard box 32cm x 28cm x 4cm, inside which was a padded envelope 38cm x 32cm, inside which was a Library of Congress Gift Shop plastic bag, inside which were a Library of Congress book mark and another cardboard box 9cm x 9cm, inside which were a piece of foam and another plastic bag, inside which were a description of the motif on the earrings and - the earrings!

MIN DINNING

LINTON, CAMBRIDGESHIRE

In a state

Sir: In view of the evident eagerness of the new president-elect of France to enroll his country as the 52nd state, perhaps he should rewrite the motto of Louis XIV as: "Les États-Unis, c'est moi!"

ADRIAN MARLOWE

THE HAGUE

Flagged up

Sir: Julien Evans suggests that having a symmetrical design would end the possibility of the Union Flag being flown "upside down" (Letter, 7 May). Another solution could be placing an easily recognised symbol at the centre of the flag. Might I suggest a wee red dragon?

A N LEE

LLANDEILO, CARMATHENSHIRE

Not enough debt

Sir: Sara Neill (letter, 7 May) has hit the nail on the head concerning prompt payers producing less profit for creditors. Recently my credit card company, Morgan Stanley, wrote to advise me that they would in future be collecting my outstanding balance some seven days earlier. This is because I settle in full each month by direct debit.

MICHAEL G COTTRELL

MARLOW, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Final gesture

Sir: Last year it was widely reported that we would get a papal visit as part of Tony's Exit Plan A. Clearly, the beatification is on hold, just like the cheering in the streets. But note that part of Exit Plan A has survived: Tony has sent George Bush the Queen to help him with his poll ratings.

TREVOR PATEMAN

BRIGHTON

Rare bird

Sir: The A4095 through Long Hanborough warns motorists of a "Humped Toucan Crossing". We missed it. It must have been elsewhere, pursued by twitchers, perhaps.

S LAWTON

KIRTLINGTON, OXFORDSHIRE