Border Mail letters: Border Mail readers have their say on the issues of the day

Trevor suffered a major heart attack just after lunch, and while in distress was attended to by three caring Albury citizens and the paramedics who were called.

Unfortunately he did not survive but we are so very grateful to the people who tried to help him.

Trevor worked for V/Line Victoria as a driver/instructor and was in Albury working with a young trainee.

Please accept our sincere thanks and gratitude for your caring response. You truly are wonderful people. We are comforted to know that he was not alone in his last moments.

I write in response to Denise Cameron's letter (‘We are not animals’, The Border Mail, January 17). It baffles me this superiority complex most humans seem to have. This superiority complex is precisely why the planet is in the current state of decline ecologically speaking. But that's not what this is about.

Denise has the mistaken belief that humans are not animals, and that somehow justifies the current laws preventing people with excruciating terminal illnesses to be “put down” (her words, not mine).

Contrary to your opinion, Homo sapiens (what humans are classified as) are mammals. Now correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since High School biology class, mammals are animals yes? So, according to biology, an objective discipline that looks at facts and nothing else, humans are animals.

The only thing that makes us “special” compared with other mammals is that we seem to have the ability to reproduce at a rate that would give insects a run for their money.

With regards to assisted dying for the terminally ill: people would not be “put down by lethal injection”, as Denise so eloquently put it. The last time I read up on the proposed law, the patient would a) need to be terminally ill, b) require multiple doctors to approve such a request and c) be of sound mind to make such a request.

There are other prerequisites that would need to be satisfied I'm sure but I can't recall them at this point in time. My point is, if you morally object to assisted death, there's good news: you don't have to choose it for yourself. But you do not have the right to push your beliefs on others who, if the option was available, would choose otherwise.

I personally hope that if at some point in my future I am afflicted by a terminal illness, the proposed law will have come into effect and should I so choose, I will be able to die in whatever way seems dignified to me.

You did mention one thing that was right: Dying doesn't have much going for it, so hopefully in the near future, patients suffering will have the option, should they so desire, to at least choose how they go, and it should be respected by all.

There’s not much Nick Kyrgios does that makes me laugh. But on Wednesday night he gave me a good chuckle. After watching him implode after leading by two sets at the Australian Open, rusted-on tennis fans like me had the pleasure of watching him front a press conference not too long after.

He put on quite the show of petulance. I do accept his behaviour is probably not funny but seriously, how can you not laugh at a 21-year-old man who not only chooses to behave like a four-year-old, but chooses to do it in front of an international audience. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

The winner of the letter of the week is D. A. Corbett, of Albury. Collect your prize from The Border Mail, 1 McKoy Street, Wodonga.