I NOTE that terminally ill former chartered accountant Geoff Whaley from Buckinghamshire, has had to travel to Switzerland to obtain assistance to die and to end his constant suffering. His loving wife has been questioned by police for assisting his suicide (“Assisted dying man hits out at police”, The Herald February 8). To assist someone who still has brain function and is terminally ill and requesting death to cease the constant suffering is not suicide.

Many states in the US and countries such as Australia have had laws on Assisted Dying for up to 20 years and report that no abuse of these laws has taken place. Why are UK governments so cruelly backward in laws to prevent human suffering and yet away ahead in preventing animal suffering? I hear that currently practising UK doctors are to be consulted on the introduction of an assisted dying law for humans and an estimated 75 per cent of UK residents hope for a favourable response.

Gordon Caskie,

Barochan Place, Campbeltown.