To The Times
I think it most unlikely that a change in the law will bring about a significant increase in the number of people making the decision to commit suicide, as this  is a decision based on a number of causal factors, of which legality is not one. There will be no headlong rush, lemming-like, towards the precipice.

What will change, however, is the method of suicide, with people able to choose a calmer, more controlled, and above all more dignified way of ending their lives, rather than being driven to an act of desperation as many are at the moment. If we can prevent people from throwing themselves in front of trains, for example, and thereby avoid the additional distress to their families, railway staff and the emergency services, that must be a desirable goal, which, as a serving police officer, I most certainly welcome.
David Green, South Brent, Devon. ( The Week May 27 2013).

The above letter refers, as I understand it, to a British proposal to overturn the law making suicide illegal and allow some degree of assisted death.  Epicureans should welcome the move.  Our bodies are our bodies, and it is a human right to depart this life when we want to.  The preoccupation of the major religions with “life” is a travesty.   It has less to do with god than the collecting of adherents,  and has been responsible for an increase in the human population of the planet that could very well cause a rather important extinction – ours!   It is stupid and short-sighted.