Four peers from Care Not Killing have accused the BBC of campaigning for assisted suicide.
Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Carlile of Berriew, QC, have written to Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC and to Lord Patten, Chairman of the BBC Trust, to complain about the recent programme "Choosing to Die" which showed the dying moments of a man who had travelled to the Dignitas "clinic" in Switzerland.
The peers pointed out that the BBC was running an orchestrated campaign in favour of assisted suicide. They wrote:
Setting aside our repugnance that the death of a patient with motor neurone disease should be turned into a form of voyeuristic entertainment, the BBC has a duty to provide balanced debate.CNK also warns of the danger of copycat suicides and quotes the World Health Organisation recommendations to media professionals, most of which are contravened by the BBC programme.
Just so that you know: the Dignitas "clinic" is a hotel room or rented accommodation somewhere (they have to move quite often) where the person is given a lethal dose of barbiturates. The one who provides "assistance" does not have to be a doctor. In 2008, The Times reported on the warning issued by the Waste Disposal, Water and Energy Department to Dignitas about the human remains in Lake Zurich. To learn more about Dignitas, see the article by Peter Saunders: Twenty facts we did not learn from Terry Pratchett’s BBC ‘documentary’ on assisted suicide in Europe. An example is the fact that on one occasion, the relocation of the "clinic" was occasioned by residents encountering body bags in the lifts. (That's a problem people often forget about: What do you do with the bodies?) In some cases, the relatives arrange a funeral. In other cases, Dignitas is left to get on with things.
Peter Saunders comes in for criticism in the combox for daring to use the N word. In fact, he did mention the Nazi holocaust in order to point out that Leo Alexander, a psychiatrist who gave evidence at Nuremberg in 1949 said:
‘its beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians. It started with the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted and finally all non-Germans.’I wrote about a important essay by Malcolm Muggeridge in which he made much the same point: "The life thou gavest, Lord, we've ended".
Apropos of nothing at all, did you know that the slogan for the Dignitas "clinic" is Menschenwürdig Leben - Menschenwürdig Sterben. It has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?.
(BTW the Matt cartoon for Wednesday in the Daily Telegraph was very good.)
5 comments:
The BBC certainly seems to have an agenda with this issue. The programme might have backfired in that Dignitas was portayed in its horrific reality. The man in the programme died gasping for water with his wife looking on helplessly. Catholics need to keep up the pressure on this. Otherwise society will just sleepwalk into accepting euthansia as normal.
In my eyes, here is not even the "entertainment" that is wanted. In other words, I do not think that the BBC broadcast these things for the audience.
I think it is a purely ideological stance. They think the country should be as Nazi as they are. This is why they do it every year and this is why they continue to insist even after the relevant proposals were repeatedly - and comfortably - defeated.
This nothing to do with information anymore, this is pure social engineering.
Mundabor
It would perhaps help if the "distinguished theologian and Roman Catholic priest Hans Kung" had not written a book, published in 2001 called "Dying with Dignity: A plea for personal responsibility". I found that just now while googling "worthy life: worthy death".
Unbelievable.
I complained to the BBC - got a reply today, which was reasonably fast, saying that "The BBC is completely impartial on the issue of assisted death."
This academic paper is highly recommended. Please read and get the information it contains out there:
http://www.current-oncology.com/index.php/oncology/article/view/883/618
From the abstract:
"Euthanasia or assisted suicide—and sometimes both—have been legalized in a small number of countries and states. In all jurisdictions, laws and safeguards were put in place to prevent abuse and misuse of these practices. Prevention measures have included, among others, explicit consent by the person requesting euthanasia,
mandatory reporting of all cases, administration only by physicians (with the exception of Switzerland),and consultation by a second physician.
The present paper provides evidence that these laws and safeguards are regularly ignored and transgressed in all the jurisdictions and that transgressions are not prosecuted."
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