This letter and others on these pages give examples of good points to raise in writing to MPs or Peers about the Joffe Bill. Put the ideas in your own words and add a personal angle based on your own experience of the issues.

Dear...

I am writing to express my concern about the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, which aims to legalise assisted suicide and receives its second reading in the House of Lords on 12 May.

Legalisation of assisted suicide would, I believe, be to the detriment of our society as a whole, damaging further the doctor-patient relationship and leading us as a society to continue to avoid rather than confront issues of dependence and suffering around death.

I do not believe that we do anyone a service by legalising assisted suicide. Such a law will only put pressure on vulnerable people to request early death. There are many instances of people who have approached the point of suicide and have subsequently been very glad indeed that the opportunity of assistance to take their own lives was not available.

We need to facilitate not assisted suicide, but the dignity and self-respect of the dying, making use of all the excellent support available in these circumstances, through application of modern technology as well as providing love and care, even if it costs us, and society as a whole, more resources of time, thought and money.

I urge you to oppose this bill.

Yours sincerely