I CONGRATULATE you for opening and maintaining this end of life debate in your Letters Pages (October 16, 17 & 18) as it is something that every one of us will eventually face.

And therein lies the heart of the problem – "eventually".

As a society, we get caught up with other issues and simply "park" this question for another day – which seldom comes. Yet it is something that will confront us all and my challenge, to those who do not support the right to die legislation, is to answer the heart- rending letter from Thelma Edwards (October 18) in which she detailed the suffering her poor mother went through in her final days on this earth.

There simply cannot be any justification for cruelty.

Alan McKinney, Edinburgh EH16.