Defending the right of assisted dying for the terminally ill, Colin JW Torrance asks: “Where are the statistics that show ‘vulnerable’ people are being coerced?” (Christianity and the right to die, Letters, May 21).

The picture of vulnerable people being coerced is, indeed, often held up to us as reason why those other vulnerable people who are dying in great distress cannot be offered assisted suicide. (One should notice here the insistence that some people must suffer to prevent a supposed evil elsewhere.)

Yet we already have the opportunity to notice whether coercion is a problem. It is already legal for a patient to refuse treatment. So is there evidence that greedy relatives and penny-pinching hospital administrators (both often held up to us as demon figures in this context) are pressurising people to refuse treatment? – “Our Joyce could do with your house so why don’t you say No to the operation?" Are there safeguards against this and, if there are, is there any reason why they would not work against coercion in the case of assisted suicide?

Paul Brownsey

Bearsden