By SOMERSETJOHN
Added: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:49:49 UTC

The BBC has been accused of transmitting pro-suicide propaganda with it's documentary about the assisted suicide of Peter Smedley.

Alistair Thompson, a spokesman for the Care Not Killing Alliance pressure group, said: "This is pro-assisted suicide propaganda loosely dressed up as a documentary, while campaigner Liz Carr said: "I and many other disabled older and terminally ill people, are quite fearful of what legalising assisted suicide would do and mean and those arguments aren't being debated, teased out, the safeguards aren't being looked at.

Thompson's pressure group does not provide an easily accessible list of affiliate members and groups, but does state it includes faith-based organisations and from its' own website demonstrably wants to make sure assisted suicide remains a criminal as well as an anti-social activity. It clearly has no intention of supporting any debate on the subject.

Any truth in Liz Carr's claim that the issues are not being debated and safeguards not being looked at can only be based on the refusal of CNKA and similar groups to tolerate such debate.

We do need the debate, and at all levels of society. What we don't need are arguments based on primitive tribal superstitions. We don't need Liz Carr's assertion that the BBC's effort to bring some of the issues into the light is just propaganda.

Opinions welcome.

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