Euthanasia: Leslie Burke (2004)

Barcode (ID): 03D0626810                                                         

Main Search Term and Keywords: Assisted Suicide, Mercy Killing, Euthanasia

Date of Broadcast: 25th February 2004

Clip Duration: 4 min 22 seconds

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Description: It’s literally a matter of life and death. A man is taking on the medical establishment to challenge the rules which he fears could withhold the treatment he will need to stay alive. Leslie Burke has a degenerative brain disease which will one day leave him unable to move or speak. He’s worried that doctors might decide his condition is so severe, that they’ll stop artificial feeding and allow him to die.

• Leslie Burke has a degenerative disease – cerabellar ataxia
• Leslie currently has a good life – a job, a social life
• He worries it will be a doctors decision to withdraw food and fluid and does not want that to happen
• He worries he will not be able to get his wishes across and is aware that any after withdrawal it will take him 2-3 weeks to die
• No records kept about withdrawal – doctors do not like to discuss it
• General Medical Council guidelines
• Leslie believes these guidelines will not protect him
• The doctor can ignore the request to say the patient wants life-sustaining treatment but cannot ignore the withdrawal of food and fluid within a living will
• Leslie does not want to die this way and wants to make sure doctors are to go to court before him or any other person is to die from withdrawal

Discussion Questions

• Should we, as individuals, have a right to decide how and when we end our lives?
• How would this change if we were ‘critically ill’
• If euthanasia were to be legalized in the UK, how would human life or medical practices be compromised considering what happened in the Netherlands?
• What is the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia?
• If people are able to commit suicide/or attempt and not be criminalized, why should euthanasia be criminalized?

Similar Questions

• If euthanasia were legalized in the UK, what could be the possible consequences?
• Since suicide is not against the law, should it be illegal to help someone commit suicide?

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Controversy Over Artificial Insemination (1991)

Barcode (ID): 03b0023757                                                 

Main Search Term and Keywords: Artificial Insemination, Artificial Life

Date of Broadcast: 11th March 1991

Clip Duration: 4 min 10 seconds

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Description: A woman in the Midlands who has never had sexual intercourse could become the first heterosexual virgin in Britain to become a mother. The woman, in her 20s, is undergoing artificial insemination. MPs have demanded laws to ban doctors from promoting ‘virgin births’.

• Artificial Insemination by donor or AID
• Helps 15,000 childless couples a year
• 3 woman giving counselling at Birmingham Hospital
• 1 woman is to become ‘a virgin mother’ as she is in her 20s and has never had sexual intercourse
• Warnock Report of 1984 – first ever set of guidelines
• Says ‘Children should be born into a two parent family’ and ‘Clinics did not need to be licensed’
• August 1st 1991, Human Fertilisation Embryology Act says ‘A woman shall NOT be provided with treatment services unless account has been taken of the welfare of any child born as a result of the treatment…including the need of that child for a father’
• Code of Practice for clinics is currently being drawn up
• Still will leave enough ‘space’ for single woman to have a baby
• Interviews/opinions – for and against
• Instruction booklet on AI
• Interview with Lord Winston

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