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.

The European Association for Palliative Care has affirmed, that requests for euthanasia and assisted suicide are extremely rare when patients' physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs, are properly met. Just 6% of hospice patients even discuss the matter, and only 3.6% of terminally ill patients in other care settings. The vast majority of people dying in the UK, even from diseases like motor neurone disease (MND), do not want 'assisted dying' and the 1,000 MND patients, who die annually in the UK, do so in the main comfortably with good palliative care.

The very small number of high profile cases who push for assisted suicide, are simply well publicised exceptions. In two large series from St Christopher's Hospice, where modern palliative care began, '94% of over 200 MND patients had a peaceful death, and contrary to media hype, no patients choked. Paradoxically Diane Pretty, who took her case for assisted dying unsuccessfully to the European Court of Human Rights, had a death that was 'perfectly normal, natural and peaceful', according to Dr Ryszard Bietzk, head of medical services at the Pasque Hospice, Luton, where she was cared for.

Rather than pushing for assisted dying, our key priority should therefore be to build on the excellent tradition of palliative care that we have in this country and make best quality palliative care more readily accessible.

I urge you to oppose this bill and to fight for better services for the vulnerable

Yours sincerely