Primrose Kirkman, of Warminster, in a letter to The Guardian newspaper, published today, Sunday 5th January 2014, writes:
If only Margaret Drabble’s wish (When it’s time to go, let me go, with a whisky and a pill, 2 January) could be realised, but not only for the old, although that is now my personal, selfish concern. My son was forced to starve himself to death two and a half years ago, a long, drawn-out process which took determination and courage and which was particularly harrowing for his family. He had suffered from a particularly aggressive form of MS for several years, a disease which is progressive and incurable. When he could no longer move himself from his bed to his wheelchair he decided that we had all had enough.
His doctor was sympathetic but could do nothing to help and it was too late to get Seamus to Switzerland had he not wanted, anyway, to die in his own bed. Margaret Drabble is right that we treat people with less humanity than we do our animals. I had been able to put a much-loved dog out of her suffering a few months before I had to watch my son end his own life. It would surely be a sign of an adult and civilised society to be able to do for our loved ones what we can do for our pets.