BBC Airs Documentary on Assisted Suicide

Terry Pratchett’s documentary, “Choosing to Die,” aired on BBC on June 13. The documentary chronicled the assisted suicide of Peter Sedley, a seventy-one year old, chronically ill man suffering from motor neuron disease. The documentary also included testimony from Sedley’s wife.

Sedley and his wife traveled from their home in the U.K. to the Dignitas facility, an assisted suicide facility in Switzerland. Switzerland is one of four European countries that practice assisted suicide in some form. The Swiss, in a referendum, recently voted to maintain the practice of assisted suicide.

Though the documentary received mixed reviews from the public, it is irrefutable that the film succeeded in encouraging discussion on the use of assisted suicide. During a recent BBC Question Time, the panel addressed the topic of assisted suicide and “spoke carefully and thoughtfully to a very respectful audience which seemed, for the most part, to be open minded on the subject.”

Terry Pratchett, A Week in the Death of Terry Pratchett, June 18, 2011; see BBC Airs Controversial Assisted Suicide Documentary, Death Shown on Air, June 14, 2011.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.