Assisted suicide show sparks euthanasia bias row

Published on Saturday 11 June 2011 16:37

THE BBC has been accused of helping to promote assisted suicide in a TV documentary by author and Alzheimer's sufferer Sir Terry Pratchett to be screened tomorrow.

In the film, millionaire hotelier and motor neurone disease sufferer Peter Smedley, 71, is seen taking a lethal dose of barbiturates at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

The BBC defended its decision to broadcast Choosing To Die on BBC2 after anti-euthanasia campaigners complained following an advance screening.

Alistair Thompson, spokesman for the Care Not Killing pressure group, said: "This is pro-assisted suicide propaganda loosely dressed up as a documentary."

Thompson accused the BBC of repeatedly giving voice to pro-euthanasia views but failing to offer a contrary view.

The group claims that this is the fifth programme produced by the BBC in three years presented by a pro-euthanasia campaigner or sympathiser.

Other examples include a BBC Panorama documentary fronted by pro-euthanasia MSP Margo MacDonald and last year's Richard Dimbleby lecture, in which Pratchett called for the introduction of euthanasia tribunals.

Asked what he thought the reason for this alleged imbalance was, Thompson said euthanasia made for "eye-catching TV". He added: "Where is the other side of the argument? Where are the incredible things disabled people do?"

According to Care Not Killing, such public portrayals of euthanasia risk creating a "suicide contagion" among the vulnerable.

Thompson said: "The evidence is that the more you portray this, the more suicides you will have.

"The BBC is funded in a different way to other media and has a responsibility to give a balanced programme."

Choosing To Die follows Smedley from his mansion in Guernsey to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, which over the past 12 years has helped 1,100 people to die. Before leaving home, Smedley tells Pratchett: "My condition has deteriorated to the point where I need to go fairly shortly."

He is shown in Switzerland taking a lethal dose of Nembutal helped down with a praline chocolate.

Later he is seen choking and asking for water while his wife of 40 years, Christine, 60, holds his hand. As he dies, a staff member tells the camera: "He is losing consciousness. Very soon the breathing will stop and then the heart."

Pratchett comments: "This has been a happy event. He died peacefully, more or less in the arms of his wife, quietly."

But at the end of the documentary Pratchett claims he cannot decide whether or not he would be able to end his life. He says: "I am not sure what I would do if I was there."

The BBC denied having any bias in the public debate over assisted suicide.

A BBC spokeswoman said the documentary was "about one person's experience".

She added: "This documentary adheres to the BBC's guidelines and is sensitive.

"It is giving people the chance to make their own minds up on the issue."