Focus on the victim

Your helpful editorial (June 26) on the merits of euthanasia calls for positive ideas on the topic, a stance which is to be commended.

It does, however, introduce a less than positive dimension to the discussion when it entertains the possibility that euthanasia might be employed to satisfy the needs of people other than those suffering.

You ask -- and leave open -- the question whether families should "be left watching their relatives die slowly or be impoverished themselves because they have to shoulder the financial burden".

I find this worrying. Of course, one has profound sympathy for the relatives -- and we should work to assist them -- but it is horrifying to think that their plight might be considered a relevant issue in this discussion.

The debate over euthanasia in Australia and other parts of the world has been essentially over whether the acutely suffering should have the right to voluntarily end their lives. It has not been about the needs of others in society.

Equally worrying is the comment by Prof. Ibrahim Hosen that euthanasia is acceptable because letting a person with an incurable condition live would waste a lot of money.

If we were to take that comment on board, why stop with the incurably ill? Let's kill the old, the people in prisons, the mentally ill -- anyone who is a burden.

To keep this discussion on track it would help to focus on whether Indonesia wants to introduce "voluntary" euthanasia.

There is no need to muddy the waters with reference to other people's interests and to social utilitarian theories that last had serious currency in Nazi Germany.

JOHN HUGH OMOND

Jakarta