YOU report that a public consul­tation on assisted suicide found overwhelming support for the idea ("Assisted suicide law backed", The Herald, August 19).

However, the stage to which you refer was the Health and Sport Committee's call for written evidence, not a consultation (that phase was some time ago and found most were against).

At the committee stage of a Bill it is not a matter of filling mailbags - we could easily have mounted a campaign to do just that. Instead, the committee stage is a time for serious, in-depth debate and analysis. The number of submissions is therefore far less important than the arguments they contain.

My Life, My Death, My Choice claims that 79 per cent of individual responses were in favour. In fact, 414 of those were identical submissions sent in via its website, and contrib­uted nothing substantial to the debate. Separating the identical submissions, as the health committee has done, leaves 406 individual responses with just 58 per cent in favour.

Everyone can and should have their say, but to reduce the committee stage to an opinion poll does our democratic process no favours.

Aidan Cook,

Campaign Officer,

Care Not Killing Scotland,

Challenge House,

29 Canal Street, Glasgow.