In defending Rep. Shields, House Republican spokesman Dan Demeritt was quoted as follows: “He (Shields) is also a dedicated physician who has spent a lifetime serving his patients,” (April 19).

One would hope they were better served than Mike Simpson, the high school senior who simply asked Shields to consider an assisted suicide law similar to Oregon’s.

Clearly, such a law has strong support in Maine and elsewhere. But just as clearly, no one on either side of the serious debate over assisted suicide deserves to be insulted in the manner that one can only infer from Rep. Shield’s letter.

Richard Hooper, South Paris