Support For Christian Rossiter's Right Not To Be Fed

The following letters were received by The Age, Melbourne, following the decision by the West Australian Supreme Court upholding quadriplegic Christian Rossiter's right not to be fed.

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Sanity and political courage required

I AM elated that common sense has prevailed in the Christian Rossiter case (''Court upholds quadriplegic's right to starve to death'', The Age, 15/8), and that he has been granted the right to choose his own path in life, even if that choice leads to his death. We have been cautioned not to relate that judicial decision to the wider question of voluntary euthanasia, yet it must at the very least be seen as a glimmer of common sense through the darkness of fear and ignorance.

Surveys consistently reaffirm vast community support for controlled euthanasia, and our belief in the right to make our own life choices. Eventually sanity must prevail and ultimately politicians must act on behalf of that huge majority.

I hope that I shall live to see such political courage emerge, and that I shall not have to slink off furtively to a more enlightened land to end my days. Our politicians have a duty and an obligation to act upon the wishes of the electorate, rather than acquiesce to a fearful minority and their own selfish political conservatism. Who among them has the courage of our convictions?

Bob Thomas, Blackburn South

It doesn't make sense

A COURT rules that an aged-care centre in Perth will not be breaking any law if it assists a quadriplegic man to voluntarily terminate his suffering through starvation. Yet if someone offered this same