Letters | 25 April 2019

Not an island

Sir: I and those with whom I live and work are all within coughing distance of Sam Leith’s ‘threshold of death’ and we need no reminders that your body is your own, because we wish to God it wasn’t (‘Last rights’, 20 April). But as it is, we owe it to that body to see the process through. My ‘going hence’ is not a private matter. I am not an island but a piece of the continent and that connection is the key to the human genius of social literacy.

We demented dodderers are an eighth age, a new demographic, practically a new species, and we bring with us new ethical dilemmas. Nevertheless, civilised society remains underpinned by the moral injunction presented by Douglas Murray to ‘choose life’, which euthanasiasts fail to appreciate. For them, society is simply a collection of autonomous individuals and death just another commodity, with we crumblies its loyal customers.