Where has Nick Cartwright been?

Nick Cartwright says (Guardian 15 December) that Parliament has resolutely refused to debate 'assisted dying'. Where on earth has he been these last few years? Parliament has debated 'assisted dying' in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2009. On the last two occasions (Joffe Bill and Falconer amendment) specific proposals were put to a vote and decisively defeated.

This has nothing to do with moralist objections to changing the law, much less to so-called religious ones - a favourite excuse for failure of the pro-euthanasia lobby. Anyone who reads the Hansard records of these debates will find that almost none of the objections were of a moralist or religious nature. The issue on which the euthanasiasts have signally failed to convince Parliament is public safety - it just isn't safe to change the law as they are proposing. Talk of 'safeguards' is just that - talk! When you look at the so-called safeguards that have been proposed and examine what they add up to in practice, you soon realise that they would safeguard nobody.

The law as it stands is fit for purpose. It's robust enough to deter the malicious and flexible enough to acommodate genuinely compassionate cases. We tinker with it at our peril.