Gozo fast ferry service

One of the reasons that the fast ferry services have not reached their target (June 2) is the fact that the service is cancelled virtually every time there is even a moderately strong wind.

One, therefore, just cannot make plans relying on the fast ferry if one has an important commitment to attend.

I have used the fast service many times (both companies) and it is very efficient when in operation but  I tend to opt for the Gozo Channel ferry if it is at all windy. It takes a virtual hurricane for the latter to be cancelled.

Charles Gauci – Sannat

Debate on euthanasia

The time has come for a national debate on euthanasia. Photo: Shutterstock.com

A few days ago, I found myself shouting at Clint Eastwood. I was repeating, with conviction as well as with a tinge of a plea, “yes you can”, “yes you can”. It was in the closing part of an award-winning 2004 film – Million Dollar Baby.

Maggie, a female boxer, lay in a hospital bed paralysed from the neck down, unable to breathe by herself and having also lost a leg to gangrene following an incident in the fight for the welterweight title. My assertion was in reaction to Eastwood’s or, rather, Frankie’s reply to Maggie’s request to her trainer to help her end her existence. Frankie and Maggie had developed a very strong bond and he had huge guilt feelings for having eventually accepted to train her, yet, his reply was that he could not do it.

This situation must have touched a raw nerve because it is something which has come to occupy my thoughts rather frequently as I grow older and as I experience in those around me the degradation that the years, and failing health, can wreak upon our bodies and our minds.

I am sure that most older people, at some point, would have expressed their fear that they could end up unable to fend for themselves and dependant on others for the simplest of things, as they grow old or due to an illness. This has become a fixation for me feeding a conviction that a person should be able to choose to end his or her existence when it can no longer be considered a life. When it has morphed into a huge burden on those we love and whom we would rather see looking after their families and living their life while they are still able to.

In the end, Frankie makes his final decision, the ultimate conflict: to decide to facilitate the death of his most beloved. In essence, to give up his chance at salvation for Maggie.

Society permits animals to be put down as an act of kindness when they are suffering. Maggie’s father had to put down his dog, Axle. An oversimple argument could be that the same treatment should be available to humans.

Of course, this is a hugely controversial subject and, in Catholic Malta, the Church’s views on the subject leave no room for discussion. Yet, I believe that the time has come to have a national debate on euthanasia and the different types that are already legal in a number of countries.

Anthony Spiteri – Swieqi

Planning Authority chair

I will not go into the merits or otherwise of the person nominated as chairperson of the Planning Authority, neither will I comment on his competence for the post.

However, rejecting and withdrawing his nomination for being honest may be the legal way but is definitely disturbing. 

Francis Tabone – Mdina

Samuel Pepys quote

Revel Barker’s article on June 4 definitely rings a bell. The famed 17th-century diarist, Samuel Pepys, who was also a member of parliament, once said: “The pub is the heart of England.”

As I have been in the business for over 40 years, this quote means a lot to me.

Guliano Borg – Gżira

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