Disabled people must be heard when it comes to assisted dying

Disabled people, myself included, have fought relentlessly to have our voices heard in society. We are a diverse community and the full range of our views must be heard and respected. This is why Disability Rights UK maintains a neutral position on the important topic of assisted dying.

Assisted dying is a subject of great importance, and I take issue with the assertion that we are a homogenous group, united in fear over its legalisation. Quite the contrary, many of us wholeheartedly support attempts to provide greater choice to those in their final months of life. It would certainly provide me with comfort should I find myself suffering unbearably as I die.

The model most recently proposed in Westminster and which is being considered in the Scottish parliament would be accessible only by terminally ill, mentally competent adults. Oregon in the United States was the first to introduce such a law and Disability Rights Oregon has never received a proven complaint of abuse in the law’s 25-year-plus existence. There are currently no protections, under the existing laws in England, Scotland, or Wales, that prevent coercion from relatives resulting in individuals committing suicide or travelling to Switzerland. I am sure we can all agree that safeguards to prevent coercion in this matter are extremely important.

More and more jurisdictions have followed suit, including several other US States, Australia, and New Zealand. Nowhere in the world are assisted dying laws being repealed. The evidence is clear: these laws work. I am confident that it is only a matter of time before we welcome them to our own shores.

Dr Stephen Duckworth

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Suella Braverman seems, like her predecessor and the wider Tory party, to be floundering in a sea of stubbornness and make-believe. It seems, to me at least, that if there is no official route into Britain then immigrants will choose the next best, or only, route in.

Why not open an official route for immigrants to safely seek asylum thereby controlling who comes into the country and those that are rejected? If an official route were available, surely the number of immigrants using the Channel crossing would substantially reduce. It would also deter smuggling gangs from plying their trade.

This government has forced traumatised refugees seeking asylum to take desperate action in order to possibly live in a stable country. Furthermore, they have stigmatised them as lawbreakers. It seems that the government is content with spending vast amounts of our hard-earned taxes on a policy that is doomed to failure.

It just seems that this problem will not go away until some sensible, rational alternative to end this stupid, costly, and vindictive method of reducing so-called illegal immigration is available.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

At the beginning of this year Cambridge City Council in their wisdom, or lack of, pledged that only plant food will be served at meetings. The main reason behind this decision was that meat and dairy contribute disproportionately to climate and ecological breakdown. It was suggested that the livestock industry has a huge waste issue highlighting the high amount of food that needs to be grown to feed animals farmed for their meat. While there is some truth in this statement, it is misleading.

When it comes to truly organic natural food production, the truth is just the opposite – producing meat milk and eggs is easier compared to producing plant food. As a result, they are healthy and do not need much extra feed or care. All cows, sheep, goats, and other herbivorous animals need is chemical-free pastures with plenty of growing grasses and herbs.

The industrial paradigm of agriculture is causing climate change. Forty per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change come from a fossil-fuelled-based global system of agriculture. The fossil fuels used to make fertilizers, run farm machinery, and waste fully move food thousands of miles across the globe contribute to carbon dioxide emissions. So again, Cambridge City Council is not wholly wrong about the costs of factory-farmed meat. But, this is not the case for livestock grown across Cambridgeshire by farmers grass-feeding their cattle and moving their herds regularly from pasture to pasture in order to regenerate the soil. So, my question is why doesn’t the council buy their meat from farmers growing their livestock locally using healthy, regenerative, and sustainable practices?

Finally, meat is good for you. (No judgement on vegans and vegetarians who choose to avoid meat for moral or religious or even financial reasons.)

Humans can live exclusively on animal foods. People with ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, and severe mental illness do very well on a no-plant diet. The carnivore way of eating is becoming increasingly popular because all the nutrition you need can be obtained from eating meats, including organs, animal fats, stock, and bone broth.

They achieve this goal. I do understand that this is debatable. I do not hold this up as a forgone conclusion but I would say again: Cambridge City Council would do well to study the literature on beef and livestock farming because if more is done in a sustainable and regenerative way it would very much help the environment across our county.

Kate Travers

Cambridgeshire

I read the column on VS Naipaul’s biography and I can’t seem to understand the purpose of bringing the controversy surrounding the author’s personal life to the fore again. Some of those stories, as noted in the column, were self-confessed, and publicised over the years. And Naipaul didn’t shy away from the truth. Nothing new here. Are we going to re-examine the personal lives of all the greatest artists of the 20th century? I hope not.

Guillaume de Bourayne

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I firmly believe that the personal life of an artist is just that, his personal life. It has no impact on the appreciation of his work, especially the momentous work of Nobel Laureate VS Naipaul. I agree with Robert McCrum when he says that Naipaul was always a “volatile mix of arrogance and modesty, pride and insecurity, whose brilliant combustion illuminated the world in new, and arresting ways”.

Unflinchingly honest as a writer, Naipaul always remained, as he once confessed, “a sum total of his books”. And that is how his readers will remember him. Now and forever.

Nicky Malik

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