JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: Coronation St assisted suicide episode risks misleading public

Tuesday, 14 January 2014

Coronation St assisted suicide episode risks misleading public

Next Monday's Coronation Street

A forthcoming episode of a popular British soap-opera risks misleading the public on the issue of assisted suicide.

Next Monday's Coronation Street storyline depicts 'Hayley', a character with terminal cancer, opting for assisted suicide. 'Hayley' fears that painkillers will cloud her mental processes in the dying phase and thus she opts for assisted suicide in order to take control of her death.

Anthony Ozimic, SPUC Pro-Life's communications manager, told the media this morning:

"Soap operas are successful vehicles for creating emotion, fear and loyalty among the viewing public, but very poor vehicles for fostering the rational, ethics-based and evidence-rich debate needed on assisted suicide. We fear that Monday's storyline will fail to give a medically-accurate depiction of the reality of palliative care in Britain today, which is highly effective in managing both pain-reduction and consciousness.

The public, through no fault of its own, is not well-informed on the issues of assisted suicide and palliative care. Objective, high-quality information on medical ethics is still sorely lacking in schools, universities, and the media. Opinion polls do not convey the facts that the majority of the medical profession does not support assisted suicide, and that the British Parliament has voted several times in recent years against a change in the law."

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About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.