The Bishop of Exeter the Rt Revd Michael Langrish took part in a BBC2 Newsnight debate on Monday June 13 following the BBC programme ‘Choosing to Die’ presented by Sir Terry Pratchett. His main comments from the debate are below:
“I did not change my mind (after seeing the programme) but my expectations changed. I expected I would disagree with the outcome and expected to welcome the film as a contribution to a really important debate but the more I watched it the more concerned and indeed disturbed I became by it. It was very one-sided, a nod to hospice care but no showing the alternative ending, no indication that the two principals Peter and Andrew needn’t have been living the life they were leading and right at the end I questioned the whole ethical basis of programme. I felt that Peter and indeed his wife and perhaps Terry Pratchett as well had been caught up and become trapped in the storyline of programme. I felt there was a deeply coercive atmosphere in room in the end and I felt quite emotionally blackmailed by it.”
It is nice to see one COE bishop speaking out about something that imitated a snuff-film under the guise of “documentary”. It is shocking to show the actual death of a person. I didn’t watch the video/pics that supposedly showed Hussein’s death nor did I watch the Daniel Pearl beheading, both “shows” on the Internet.
Now they have nationally broadcast the *suicide* of an individual for interested viewers to salaciously watch.
What next? Sponsors for Facebook suicides?
It is just . . . brutal, cruel, Roman, pagan, sick . . .
All for the purpose of Another Cause.