Letters: People's lives will be in the balance

Politicians have been debating the End of Life Choice Bill one last time before handing it to the public. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Esther Richards (Letters, November 11) suggests the euthanasia bill is completely safe and suggests that only a religious person would find anything wrong with it in its revised state.

I completely disagree with such a sweeping assumption.

We all know that giving a decision, for example, to a doctor (as with current abortion laws) or a policeman (as with current smacking laws) makes the law widely open to personal interpretation, which is not at all fair.

This law will be even less fair because people's lives will be in the balance.

Society is working hard to stem suicide rates, and yet euthanasia is just another form of suicide.

None of our politicians should have voted in favour of the euthanasia bill, but instead stood on the grounds of common sense and compassion.

(Abridged)

Janet Fookes
Kawerau

What is the problem?

The first thing we do when we are born is breathing, we learn this instinctively within a split second, the second thing we learn is to feed, to suckle at our mother's breast, as do all animals, it is extremely natural to feed thus. So why do so many adult humans object to a mother feeding her child in public?

I feel anyone who gets upset by this pure, clean, inoffensive act is possibly hung up on another aspect of life, maybe they feel inadequate about something and just wish to object to anything natural.

I have often seen mothers feeding their babies, there is nothing to see other than a baby's head, so just what is the problem?

Maybe if some people just got on with their lives and let the natural things happen then we may all live in peace.

Jim Adams
Rotorua