Sir, The medical profession is in desperate need of a fit-for-purpose moral code. How can we be prosecuting Dr Michael Munro for trying to alleviate suffering? (“Babies ‘given drug to hasten death’ ”, July 10) Only last week we heard Liz Penny’s harrowing experiences in your columns (times2, July 3). My wife has two parents in separate homes. My father-in-law, suffering from cerebrovascular disease, begged me to put him out of his misery last year. Since then he has lost the ability to move without two carers, cannot hear, cannot communicate his needs and is doubly incontinent. The NHS can keep these people alive but cannot give them a life worth living.
Luckily he signed a living will, otherwise if he started losing weight he would be force fed and, if he could not take food through his mouth, he would be put on a drip since he has no way to say no. Society needs to find a better way.
PAUL MCLEAN, York
Sir, Melanie Reid (comment, July 9) makes the usual mistake of pro-euthanasiasts by implying that the only possibilities are to let babies suffer or to kill them.
The third and correct path is to give them effective palliative care, relieving them from pain, even if their lives and health cannot be saved.
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DOMINICA ROBERTS, Bracknell, Berks