0PEN LETTER to all Tasmanian MPs, in both the Legislative Council and House of Assembly.  Emailed 2.10.2020

Dear ‘Name of MP’

A very sincere thank you to those MLCs who spoke in support of Mike Gaffney’s End of Life Choices (VAD) Bill 2020, Second Reading, and for voting it through to the Committee stage.

However, we were concerned to see during the debate that misinformation is still being spread about VAD by opposition groups who are not being upfront about their motives. The following information might help clarify the way many of those who oppose VAD are operating to deny this choice to others.

Recently a ‘popup’ group Live and Die Well emerged with the sole aim of defeating the Mike Gaffney Bill now being debated in the Tasmanian Legislative Council.

Who is behind this group? Researcher Neil Francis, of Dying for Choice, has done some digging and we urge you to read his blog https://www.dyingforchoice.com/blogs/hiding-their-religious-petticoats

To summarise Neil’s findings, a key figure with Live and Die Well is Mr Ben Smith, Director of Life, Marriage and Family Office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart. Others in the Live and Die Well team are also prominent Catholics.

Health Professionals Say No is another opposition group. A closer look reveals this group consists largely of Christian medical professionals with the purpose of denying VAD choice to all Australians. We find the same Mr Ben Smith, who signed a recent major advert in Tasmanian media against VAD by this group, had the address as 35 Tower Road New Town Tas 7008 – yes, that of the Catholic Archdiocese Office!

Of course, religious people have a right to publicly oppose VAD as an end of life choice. But two factors should be critical. 1) They must clearly state their opposition is based on their faith and 2) they must present facts – not the hypothetical fear, anxiety and doubt so often used.

Instead, a leaflet put out by Live and Die Well for distribution in a Catholic Parish exhorts parishioners NOT to use religious argument when writing to MPs to oppose VAD. The ultimate in hypocrisy.

Typical of the misleading and unsupported arguments used by these groups against VAD include:

– Claiming that palliative care can alleviate all intolerable suffering, when palliative care itself say this is not possible.

– Using emotive words such as suicide, killing, even murder, when providing a choice in the manner of their death to a person who is already dying is none of these things but a humane and compassionate option.

– using the ‘slippery slope’ argument, which is consistently disproved by experience in Oregon and other jurisdictions, and misrepresenting data from Belgium and the Netherlands.

You might ask why does the Catholic identity of these groups matter? The answer is because the Catholic belief about death and dying is not just a ‘view’, it informs everything they practise in end-of-life care. The Catholic Church believes suffering has intrinsic value because it brings the person closer to the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross. A person’s suffering provides a valuable opportunity for Catholic health care workers to evangelise the Gospels to the dying person.

You may be aware that the Vatican recently reissued its encyclical, ‘Samaritanus bonus’, on euthanasia and assisted dying, which it calls “intrinsically evil” acts “in every situation or circumstance”. It goes on to describe assisted dying as “a crime”, accusing anyone who even lobbies for such laws as being “accomplices of a grave sin that others will execute”.

Perhaps most cruelly, it attempts to terrorise the terminally ill by threatening to withhold the sacraments and absolution from anyone who even contemplates pursuing an assisted death. Some would describe such threats as blackmail.

Recent evidence given by countless innocent victims of Catholic paedophile priests reinforces the abyss and total lack of understanding by the Catholic Church for the suffering of others. Many of these victims went on to take their own lives in dreadful circumstances in a cruel irony compared with the Church position on voluntary assisted dying.

The Church has lost any moral authority it may have once possessed. The continued opposition by the hierarchy and religious others to the choice of voluntary assisted dying for a person terminally or incurably ill with unbearable suffering, particularly for a person who is not of the Catholic faith, is a classic example of obstructionism and lack of empathy.

Not all Catholics subscribe to the Vatican’s views. Our group, in its small way, represents the 75% of Christians in Australia, including 3 out of 4 Catholics, who, according to Vote Compass 2019, support Voluntary Assisted Dying as an end of life choice, showing true empathy, love and compassion for a dying person who is suffering needlessly.

We call on those opposing VAD choice to be open and transparent about their religious affiliations and to stop spreading misinformation. And we urge you, the MPs of Tasmania, to assess the information offered about VAD and its impacts with a critical eye.

Sincerely,

Norma Jamieson, Tasmanian Representative of Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Assisted Dying

Ian Wood, Spokesperson and Co-founder of Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Assisted Dying.  Mittagong NSW

The full interview, with my answers to Scott’s questions, can be found here > https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/wood-jacobsen/

I hope readers find the article of interest.

It is encouraging to have international recognition of our group and this Christian stance we are taking to give the additional option of compassionate choice in dying in Australia.

Ian Wood

Spokesperson and National Co-ordinator.

There was a good attendance of over 200 at a “Meet the Candidates” meeting organised by Friends of Bowral at the Mittagong RSL on Monday evening, 4^th February, 2019.

All the candidates spoke on their aspirations for Wollondilly Electorate – particularly with regard to our hospital, schools, more policing, roads – including the Bowral Bypass, the water crisis – including the Murray/Darling, protection of animals and the environment, controlled development with infrastructure first, and the need for better, faster public transport to the area.

In fact only one question from the audience resulted in a significant difference of opinion! Judy Hannan (Independent), Charlie Fenton (One Nation), Jo-Ann Davidson (ALP), Clive West (Greens), Heather Edwards (Animal Justice), and Jason Bolwell (Shooters, Fishers & Farmers) were all unanimous in support for end of life choice for the terminally ill enduring severe suffering with even the best palliative care. Such Legislation is now law in Victoria.

Nathaniel Smith, (Liberal), was the only candidate to say he would vote against that choice. When asked by the questioner (Geoffrey Williams) why he would vote against Voluntary Assisted Dying when a majority of the Electorate would support it, Mr Smith simply stated that it was his opinion.

As Geoffrey Williams commented after the meeting – “This is yet another example of the Coalition, particularly the Liberal Party thumbing their noses at Democracy. They arrogantly believe that only their opinion matters. That’s easily fixed – we can vote for any of the other candidates present at the meeting, ALL of whom have a compassionate view.”

Dear Prime Minister Turnbull

On Tuesday 14 August 2018 the Senate is set to debate legislation lifting the ban on NT and ACT controlling their own voluntary euthanasia laws.

The Liberal Party of Australia platform includes: We believe in the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; ……

“If the vote came on, if I was a Senator, I would be voting against it,” Mr Turnbull said on SBS News.

This is in spite of the fact that Victoria passed their Voluntary Assisted Dying law last year.

So Mr Turnbull, you believe the 250,000 people of the NT should be denied “the inalienable rights and freedoms” permitted the people of Victoria!

Mr Turnbull. Your position is both hypocritical and totally undemocratic.

Ian Wood

Spokesperson                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      for the Australia-wide group, Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia

Mittagong NSW

Assisted dying is an “ill-considered and dehumanising” practice reflecting a society in which there is more loneliness, Canberra’s Catholic archbishop Christopher Prowse has told an inquiry.

He spoke at an ACT Legislative Assembly committee’s second day of hearings into assisted dying in which doctors rubbished claims that palliative care could always manage end of life pain.

Archbishop Prowse told the committee it was a “lonely policy that only an atomised society would think about”, and said people approaching death experienced a “rollercoaster” that saw them take back comments they wanted to die earlier.

He said it would be a “fundamental mistake” to put vulnerable people at “grave risk” by allowing assisted dying.

When asked what was a good death, Archbishop Prowse recounted a time he sat with a woman as she died, and she squeezed his hand.

“I could tell she was on a journey but how grateful she was when she was with us,” he said.

“She was ready to go, ready to go and approach death.”

He admitted people he had spent time with as they were dying had said they wanted to die right away. However they changed their mind later, he said.

“Then people say, ‘I’m feeling a lot better today’.”

Ian Wood responds to Archbishop Prowse, as follows ……

Archbishop C. Prowse,                                                                                                                                                                                                    Canberra, ACT

I refer to the report of your evidence given to the ACT Assisted Dying hearing as reported in The Age, 18.5.2018.

Keith, described here by his wife, was on a “journey” too, but was certainly not “grateful” to still be alive “with us”!  (See attachment 1 below.)

You ignore the fact that over 1/3 of terminal patients in Oregon USA, who are given access to voluntary assisted dying medication, at their considered, repeated rational request, do not go on to take that fatal medication, but it does provide peace of mind in that they can choose to exit life if the suffering becomes unbearable. Having access is palliative in its own right.

Certainly when my sister-in-law Joyce died from ovarian cancer that had spread to her bones, she was not capable of squeezing any hands during her last two days! She said goodbye to her husband and family on a Sunday afternoon, but lingered on in a semi coma for another two days. In moments of lucidity she would ask why am I still here? Her husband is still suffering from the trauma of watching these last days. How much better and more compassionate it would have been for Joyce if she could have asked for, and been given medication to assist her to go to sleep and not wake up, after those final goodbyes.

The truly vulnerable are those who have futile treatment inflicted on them by well meaning doctors – treatment that doctors frequently admit they would not accept for themselves.   “Up to 70% of people now die in acute hospitals, surrounded by well meaning strangers, inflicting all that medicine has to offer; often resulting in a painful, distressing and degrading end to their life,” and “Clinicians themselves are often complicit in refusing to face the inevitability of dying and death,” states Dr Ken Hillman, Professor of intensive care at the University of NSW in Sydney.

Dr Charlie Corke, Palliative Care, Geelong Hospital, VIC says, “He ‘inflicts’ treatments he would not want done on himself.”

Two other examples are attached where assisted dying choice would have been a humane, compassionate and Christian option. (See attachment 2 and 3 below)

Yet you and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church insist that your beliefs on assisted dying choice should override the rights of other Australians to choose. Not between life and death, because by definition a terminal patient is going to die – but between two ways of dying – one quick and painfree.

Evidence recently given by countless victims of Catholic paedophile priests clearly show the abyss and total lack of understanding by the Catholic Church for the suffering endured by those victims. Many of these victims went on to take their own lives in dreadful circumstances in a cruel irony compared with the Church position on voluntary assisted dying.

I certainly do not write in the hope of changing your mind on this issue. By all means feel free to endure what ever suffering comes your way in your end of life, but I do pray and urge you not to use your position to force me and every other Australian to do the same.

Sincerely

IAN WOOD

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Attachment 1.

RIP Keith   Died October 26 2013, aged 85 years

I’m writing to state my case for the legislation of choice for an assisted death. On Friday 1 November 2013 I buried my husband of 61 years. Early this year he was diagnosed with aggressive Lymphoma which was strangling his Intestine. Sounds horrendous, doesn’t it?

His final 3 days were spent in hospital and on the 3rd night he lapsed into semiconsciousness. He had been having litres of fluid drained from his abdomen at intervals during the treatment process and in the early hours of the 4th day fluid in large quantities continued to rise into his throat as he was gurgling and drowning while he struggled dreadfully  to get a breath. All the while he kept raising his hand to his head imploring someone to help him. This inhumane action continued without ceasing for 7 hours!! ! How I wished we lived in a compassionate, loving society that approved an injection that would save him from this hideous state.

A Nurse entered the room towards the end, saying, “I have been crying reading his Advanced Health Directive where he wrote that it was his wish to have some kind person euthanise him.” This document had been signed by him, a Doctor and a Justice of the Peace some years ago but of course that wish is entirely overlooked by Australian Law at the present time. It was just his wish – as it was mine.  Towards the end, one and a half litres of blood soaked fluid gushed out of his mouth before he took his final breath. Those hours will haunt me forever. Why should anyone die that horribly?

When it’s your own family having to endure this cruel, inhumanity and it’s you sitting beside the bed waiting and wishing someone had bitten the bullet for change on this grievous, outmoded law of ours, you feel and know the need of the urgency for change. As a practising Christian couple we viewed the present law as ungodly. We are God’s hands and feet, he has no other, and while we do nothing this horrendous practice will continue. Please, please be strong enough to give the Ending Life with Dignity (No2) Bill 2013 the thumbs up. The majority of Australians would be enormously relieved. South Australia would be applauded.

Sincerely,   Joan S      A Christians supporting Choice for V.E. member

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Attachment 2.

No human should have to die such an horrific death.

Our members of Parliament have the power to allow a quick and more peaceful death to people like Flora.

Above left. Flora before her illness.

Flora Lormier, suffered from multiple sclerosis since she was 20 but her condition worsened over the past two years. She begged her family to help her die (left, taken by her daughter Tracey Taylor in her final days, and pictured right at a family wedding when she was younger.

Ms Taylor, from Glenrothes, Scotland, told the Daily Record: ‘Mum was just left to suffer – it was torture, absolute torture. We were all around her when she passed but it wasn’t peaceful.

‘These pictures are what people need to see – this is why we are fighting for the right to die.

‘There wasn’t a thing we could do to help free her from her pain. We had morphine and sleeping pills and she begged us to help her end it, but we couldn’t.

‘She was like a prisoner of war who had been in a concentration camp.

‘So why is it OK for a human to suffer? The Government need to see why people want the choice to decide when to die.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4116308/This-fighting-right-die-Family-release-harrowing-pictures-MS-suffering-mother-final-days-torture.html#ixzz4VharNIoe

Article from the Daily Mail, UK, copied by Ian Wood

Please support voluntary assisted dying  and give CHOICE to people in NSW who are dying just like Flora.  

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Attachment 3.

Chantal Sebire begs French president for the right to die peacefully

From correspondents in Dijon, FranceAgence France-Presse  February 27, 2008

Disfigurement … ‘an animal would not be allowed to endure what I have to endure,’ says cancer sufferer Chantal Sebire.

Tumours make Chantal Sebire’s face unrecognisable

Teacher says disease has led to attrocious suffering

A FRENCH woman badly disfigured by facial tumours caused by a rare and incurable disease has appealed to President Nicolas Sarkozy to allow her to die by euthanasia.

In an interview with the Agence France-Presse news agency, former school teacher Chantal Sebire, 52, begged for the right to end the “atrocious” suffering inflicted on her by the disease which has rendered her face unrecognisable because of growing tumours.

“An animal would not be allowed to endure what I have to endure,” she said from her home in Plombieres-les-Dijon in central France, asking French media and Mr Sarkozy to allow her a dignified death.

Euthanasia is illegal in France, unlike in some other European countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium.

Ms Sebire told AFP that she suffered from a very rare disease called esthesioneuroblastoma, which attacks the nasal cavity. It had left her blind and had robbed her of almost all other senses, leaving her in terrible pain.

“In 2000, I lost my sense of smell and taste, and then the tumour evolved and ate into my jaws, before attacking the eye socket. I lost my sight in October last year,” she said. The disease caused “atrocious bouts of pain that can last up to four hours at a time”.

Pleading to be allowed to die serenely, the mother of three said that only 200 cases of the disease had been reported globally in the last 20 years.

This article was a deciding factor in Christians Supporting Choice for VE co-founder, Ian Wood’s decision to take public stand on DWD.  He says, “Chantal would not have had to suffer in Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Oregon,or Washington State, Vermont, Montana, Colorado, Washington DC & California USA, and now Canada and asks are we so different in France or Australia?”

Christians support Voluntary Assisted Dying choice!  

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A Christian response to the Archbishop from Ian Wood.

I urge the Archbishop and his listeners on Cradio  to take the time to view two contrasting deaths, from the many I have on file.

The assisted death of John Shields in Canada. “At his own wake” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/world/canada/euthanasia-bill-john-shields-death.html

A fascinating depiction of how John, raised in a Catholic family, was ordained as a priest, but left the Church after being barred from preaching when he challenged the church opposition to birth control. Read about John’s life as a social worker, his diagnosis with terminal neuropathy and then his advocacy for Medical Assistance in Dying, and using that choice at the end.

John Shields says goodbye to friends and family at his own ‘Irish wake’

Please compare John’s death with that of Flora Lormier from Multiple Sclerosis.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/help-die-family-release-heartbreaking-9614060#ICID=sharebar_facebook

Flora became paralysed from the neck down as her MS progressed.  Her daughter Tracey Taylor posted these photos on a Facebook page and in media such as the Mirror, UK, in the hope it would alert MPs to the futile horrific suffering endured by some people as they die.

Warning: disturbing images…..

Flora before her illness.

“She was like a prisoner of war in a concentration camp”

Yes, Archbishop, as you state, there have been advances in palliative care, but their own data clearly shows that as many as 1 in 6 patients in the terminal stage of their terminal illness report moderate to severe distress from pain and breathing problems. In jurisdictions with Assisted Dying choice, two facts become clear – 1) palliative care improves and 2) assisted dying choice is not an either/or with palliative care but simply another compassionate end-of-life option.

A terminal patient is, by definition, going to die. Voluntary Assisted Dying is not a choice between life and death, but gives an alternative way of dying for the patient to consider. Those who view voluntary euthanasia and assisted dying as against their beliefs simply do not go through the rigorous process of requesting this assistance!

[Voluntary] euthanasia or an assisted death does not deny the person the opportunity to say farewell, as the Archbishop suggests. If anything the opposite is correct – knowing when you are to have that assistance gives the time to say goodbye to friends, make amends for family problems or disagreements, etc – time that may not be possible if you are hooked up to machines as you die, or in that last resort of palliative care when all else fails, put into a coma with terminal sedation until you dehydrate or starve to death!

The real problem arises when various church hierarchy use their adherence to church doctrine and dogma to override and deny the majority of Australian Christians THEIR CHOICE to follow what they believe is a true final act of love and compassion.

Desmond Tutu, renowned Archbishop Emeritus of Capetown, advocates this choice here >  https://christiansforvad.org.au/archbishop-desmond-tutu-gives-his-blessing-to-the-voluntary-assisted-dying-campaign-in-australia/#more-371

I am very happy to discuss this issue further with the Archbishop and folk on Cradio, Tasmania, but for now leave them with the words of Governor Brown of California. Gov. Brown, who had trained as a Jesuit and is a committed Catholic, and had this to say when signing the California Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation. “In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death.  I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny that right to others.”

Ian Wood

National Coordinator and Spokesperson

Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia

This is my response.

So Bishop Ingham believes advances in palliative care and pain management should negate the argument for the option for a dying patient, facing futile unnecessary suffering, to have a choice to end that suffering.

He does not say so, but we can assume he is adhering to the Catholic doctrine that suffering can be redemptive.

Nurse Barnes disputes the Bishop’s claim!

“My name is Jen Barnes and I am a nurse of 40 years. I’ve seen a lot of deaths and some of them have been far from ideal. Now I have a terminal illness. It’s an aggressive form of brain cancer and I know that it can lead to a very undignified death.

I don’t want to die. No-one wants to die.

Palliative care is very good but I know that it doesn’t work for everybody. If it comes to it, I will want another option. [Voluntary Assisted Dying]

It’s very important to me to have control of my destiny.”

(Abridged) Source: http://www.stopvictorianssuffering.org.au/petition_jen_barnes

Equally important, the Bishop’s claim about palliative care is not supported by Palliative Care’s own data; Inpatients during the terminal phase of their terminal illness: 4.2% report severe distress from breathing problems, 4.6% severe distress from fatigue, and 2.6% report severe distress from pain.

Experience in Oregon, USA, with assisted dying choice for 20 years, shows repeatedly that paradoxically many patients live longer when given the ‘green light’ for assistance. It is palliative in its own right. It is voluntary – the patient has to rationally and repeatedly ask for this assistance.

The issue is all about choice. Not a choice between life and death, but a choice between two ways of dying. Bishop Ingham is entitled to not request assistance for himself, but should not be entitled to use his position to deny other Australians their right to choose.

Governor Jerry Brown of California sums up the option very succinctly. Gov. Brown is a committed Catholic, who had formerly trained as a Jesuit, and as Governor he actually had the right to veto a California Bill allowing voluntary assisted dying.

Instead, in a very rational and compassionate letter, he concluded –

“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death.  I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny that right to others.”

Readers may note that Gov. Brown received support for signing this Bill from Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, one of the world’s most esteemed religious leaders.

Ian Wood   11.8.2017

Rev. Dr Craig de Vos, B.V.Sc., Dip.P.S., B.Th.(Hons.), Ph.D, highly respected as a theologian in social aspects of the New Testament, is a practising Minister who holds a passion for social justice issues.

Rev. Dr De Vos says, “Our politicians, often guided by dogmatic religious beliefs, continue to deny the majority who want the choice of a death with dignity.”

“Some oppose voluntary euthanasia and voluntary assisted dying choice arguing that it’s wrong because it’s playing God.  Yet so is artificially prolonging life, and so is allowing people to suffer an horrific death when there are more compassionate alternatives.”

Rev. Dr de Vos endorsed the statement by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who has said. “I believe in the sanctity of life. I know that we will all die and that death is a part of life. Terminally ill people have control over their lives, so why should they be refused control over their deaths? Why are so many instead forced to endure terrible pain and suffering against their wishes?”

Rev. Dr de Vos is Patron and member of the Executive of our group, Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia.

He concluded, “I have the utmost sympathy for Anne Gabrielides, who is facing an horrific death from rapidly progressing Motor Neurone Disease, and support her plea to NSW members of parliament to give people in her situation choice and control at the end stages of their illness. I hope these MPs will demonstrate true compassion and empathy for Anne when considering the NSW Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2017.”

Signed

Rev. Dr Craig de Vos, B.V.Sc., Dip.P.S., B.Th.(Hons.), Ph.D,

PLEASE  message Ian Wood using the “contact” on our website if you are clergy of any faith who would be prepared to endorse this Statement

Endorsed by

????

????

????

????

Etc…….

Authorised by Ian Wood

National co-ordinator and spokesperson for Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia

Villa 1, Hampton Mews, 4 Wills Place, Mittagong NSW  2575  AUSTRALIA

Website: www.Christiansforve.org.au

TO VIEW ANNIE’S VIDEO AND PLEA TO THE NSW MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.

Anne (Annie) has rapidly progressing Motor Neurone Disease and her interview together with her family is truly heartrending.  Here> https://www.change.org/p/don-t-leave-me-trapped-in-a-dying-body-allow-me-to-die-peacefully

Annie has extreme suffering as her Motor Neurone Disease is progressing rapidly.

Please view her video clip here.

Then sign her petition and share the link with your friends and ask them to sign too. As at June 3, Annie’s petition had 73,000 signatures.  Since making this video clip I understand Annie can no longer speak.

To really make a difference email the photo and link to your Member of Parliament and ask them to support compassionate legislation to give choice in dying for people such as Annie.

I could not help but contrast the traumatic emotional state of Annie compared with the peaceful and happy emotional state of Ed Ness, pictured here . 

and in this video link http://www.cheknews.ca/exclusive-ed-ness-dies-peacefully-in-doctor-assisted-death-324498/

Yet Annie is dying from terminal MND and Ed dying from terminal lung cancer. 

The crucial difference is that in Canada Ed now has the assisted dying choice. 

Both are short powerful videos that demonstrate visually to me what we are all fighting for.

Link to Rose’s story

Ian Wood sums up: This must be one of the most moving 6 minutes of video I have ever viewed. I feel anguish for Rose and her futile suffering, sorrow for Bernie, and anger towards our politicians who continue to deny us compassionate choice in dying and refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence in support.

I have emailed the link with my comment to my local MP, Jai Rowell, and asked him to please heed the overwhelming evidence in support.  You may wish to email the link to your MP too?