Let's bring the ending of painful lives out of the shadows

An assisted dying law would bring things out into the open. We know from the vast body of evidence from other jurisdictions that the majority of people who raise the possibility of assisted dying with their doctors do not go on and make a formal request, because their needs are addressed through care and support. But the option is there should they need it, and a small but significant minority of dying people feel they do.

To be clear: legalising assisted dying does not introduce the concept of choice at the end of life into society - that is already with us - but ensures that those who wish to exercise it have a clear and robust legal framework in which to do so safely.

Professor House goes on to make a series of ill-informed claims that amount to simple scaremongering, such as the suggestion doctors would not be required to make detailed notes of their contact with a patient. Assisted dying will be part of how we deliver high quality end-of-life care and doctors who choose to engage with assisted dying would be duty-bound by the existing regulation and guidance which already covers such matters. Thankfully, in recent years the British Medical Association has dropped its unrepresentative opposition to assisted dying, ensuring doctors can now contribute to the safe and effective implementation of a change in the law.

Finally, I want to address language in this debate. Suicide is a wholly inaccurate term to describe how a terminally ill, mentally competent adult might wish to exercise control over the manner and timing of their impending death. People who have an assisted death are not keen to cut their lives short, sadly their diagnoses have already imposed that fate upon them. Instead, they are making a choice not to suffer at the end of their lives against their wishes. It is a choice I believe dying people in Scotland should have.

Dr Ian Davidson, Glasgow.

Read more letters

• If MSPs don't want to decide on assisted dying, let us have a vote
• Alex Salmond top Scots figure? No, that's Gordon Brown

Perverse to leave people to suffer

SEVERAL recent correspondents have opposed assisted dying and the Scottish bill.

Observing and preserving the sanctity of human life in general is admirable in both principle and practice. However, here we are dealing with individuals with a level of disease, disability and physical and mental distress where, for them, their day-to-day suffering is in negative territory in terms of any life quality, and with no hope of recovery or relief. It is perverse and cruel to leave them to suffer rather than assist in their own decision of release from what is for them an insufferable distress.

Anyone who, in these circumstances, feels that their own religion, morals, principles, ethics or conscience must prevail against assisted dying is pursuing their own personal, indiscriminating, and sometimes sanctimonious, course, and seeking to deny merciful release to others, which is the opposite of the virtue and mercy warranted and apposite in these exceptional cases.They are the ones who should perhaps re-examine and revise their own absolute certainties, which if observed, will continue to cause cruelty and suffering to many others.

Norman Dryden, Edinburgh.

How much money do you need?

REBECCA McQuillan's column ("Wealth needs sharing out more fairly: so it’s over to you, Labour", The Herald, October 17) covered options and supposed problems for limiting wealth accumulation and estimating asset values.

Recently one rich businessman claimed that as he created work and some worth for others he should not be penalised by higher taxation. How much more does he need at this time of austerity for the poorer sections of our society? When some cannot afford a bike why does he need two Jaguars? Another 5p in the pound will not stop his net worth increasing.

If these rich want to move their wealth out of the country, it is easy to limit foreign transfers. If they will not provide details of their assets for taxation purposes our tax officials can do so quite easily.

We do not have to wait for their demise and the supply of the same information to calculate inheritance tax.

Each year I review my finances, including pensions, investments and bank accounts. By adding my house value, its contents and the car, I can identify my fiscal worth (unfortunately totalling too little to attract inheritance tax). The same calculations can be carried out by HMRC by contacting banks, insurers and studying my tax returns.

When I renew my road tax, I do not have to present an MOT certificate or proof of insurance to the DVLA, as this happens automatically via AI or internet. Surely HMRC can operate similarly.

It is puzzling that the well-documented disproportion of wealth can be calculated yet remains unchallenged or changed by successive governments.

JB Drummond, Kilmarnock.

In the footsteps of the Covenanters

THE hostility which has emerged in your columns between those who greatly admired Alex Salmond and those who did not takes me back to an earlier time in Scotland's story. I refer to the 17th century rebellion by the Covenanters and ask whether history simply repeats itself or whether there is any lesson which can be learned.

Archie Campbell, the Duke of Argyll, and James Graham, the Marquess of Montrose, had jointly signed the National Covenant in 1638 to launch a Scottish rebellion against the imposition in Scotland of an English religious liturgy. This may be seen as parallel to the manifesto for independence subscribed by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. The lack of success of the Covenant, in parallel to the recent lack of success of the independence movement, led Campbell to declare the more extreme Solemn League and Covenant which proposed rebellion against the Westminster Crown, somewhat in parallel to Nicola Sturgeon’s proposal for a unilateral declaration of support for a second referendum without the consent of Westminster. Graham, however, opposed the Solemn League, preferring the same gradualist approach recently favoured by Alex Salmond. There ensued civil war in Scotland, somewhat bloodier than but still parallel to the relations between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond during the past 10 years or so.

Campbell then went on to raise a legal process which led to the torture and death of Graham, at which stage the parallel to the proceedings against Alex Salmond becomes darker and more controversial, but the facts can only speak for themselves. Friends of Graham then swore revenge upon Campbell, again in parallel to the vitriol poured in today’s papers by the friends of Alex Salmond against those who were said to have engineered his downfall. Much like the Covenanters of old, the enmity directed against England was only a shadow of the visceral hatred directed by each Scottish side against the other Scottish side.

Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon (Image: PA)

The friends of Graham ultimately raised a legal process against Campbell which destroyed Campbell’s campaign and, in turn, cost him also his life. Thereafter Graham’s mission to restore Scottish religious practice was successful, proceeding, as Graham had urged, by negotiation with, rather than in opposition to, the British Crown.

If there is any lesson to be learned it seems that both James Graham and Alex Salmond recognised that the constitution of Scotland is inevitably part of the constitution of the United Kingdom and any radical change in the Scottish constitution which does not take into account the constitution of the United Kingdom as a whole will inevitably lead to hostile division and fail to achieve any positive conclusion.

Michael Sheridan, Glasgow.

Non-voters don't count

STEPH Johnson (Letters, October 18) is obviously adept at juggling percentages (Letters, October 18) but does not seem to understand the principle of voting.

The result of a vote, whether it be for a member of parliament or anything else, is determined by comparing the number of votes for and the number of votes against. Only the votes cast are counted. Those people who do not vote are not involved in the outcome.

If the total numbers of eligible voters are used in reaching the result, the concept of voting is meaningless unless its application was initially specified.

Peter Dryburgh, Edinburgh.