Provided that this is not an argument for active euthanasia ....

Published on Thursday 17 March 2011, Yorkshire Post.

From: Geraldine Mathieson, Dene Road, Cottingham, East Yorkshire.

I APPLAUD Samantha Cameron’s support for the Save The Children campaign to tackle avoidable infant mortality (Yorkshire Post, March 11), though question the title of this worthy campaign; No Child Born To Die.

Unless there is some unreported immortality in the world, then surely every child is born to die; it’s just a matter of when and how.

As a medically-advanced society, we shy away from the really difficult questions, and by default can sometimes cause or prolong more suffering than we relieve.

We live in an age where Nature’s reject survives as a “miracle baby”, and our old folk are protected against “the old man’s friend” pneumonia, so that they may go on to develop “the long bereavement” of dementia.

Whenever I read of some new treatment or campaign to prevent death from a particular cause, I wonder what it is that the medical profession would prefer us to die of.

“Old age” is not something that appears on death certificates any more, and with 100 per cent overall mortality rate, every reduction to one statistic has a corresponding increase in another.

Of the traditional two certainties in life; death and taxes, we talk long and often about one. Perhaps it’s time for a more open and honest debate about the other.