TV Scope: What's Wrong with...Assisted Dying? BBC1, Tuesday, 10.35pm
The timing of this programme was particularly emotive given that it was the week in which the focus of the Christian world was on the slow agonising death of one man on a cross.
However, the robust debate that the question mark in the programme title led us to expect did not materialise. The format of the programme was incongruent with the profoundness of the subject matter.
Two advocates and two opponents of assisted death, and the presenter 'host' sat cosily chatting around a table while a hovering waitress noisily topped up coffee cups and wine glasses.
This resulted in a polite discussion rather than the earnest and in-depth debate we all need to engage in about human interference in the process of dying. The springboard for the discussion was the Bill to legalise assisted death which is currently being considered in the UK.
The supporters of what is variously called assisted dying, assisted suicide or euthanasia (which means 'good death') see the Bill as being no more than a legal rubber stamping of what is already common practice.
They claimed that half of all UK doctors have already helped patients to die. There is a very grey area between what is passive and what is active euthanasia.
It appears to be permissible to give large doses of palliative drugs to dying patients if the intent is to relieve suffering even though a side effect is to quicken death. It is not at present permissible to do the same thing if the intent is to cause death more quickly in order to relieve suffering. It all depends on the intent.
Active euthanasia can also involve the use of non palliative drugs to help the patient die. Assisted suicide is more straightforward in that it provides the means for someone to kill themselves.
The opponents of assisted dying suggested that if the best level of palliative care is provided for the dying, then people are less likely to request help in dying, and that the moral challenge is to help people see the value in their lives.
There are also concerns that the vulnerable ill person will feel under pressure to opt for assisted suicide in order to avoid being a burden on their families.
While in a 35-minute programme there is not time to have the necessary deep and serious discussion, it was a shame that questions of deeper philosophical points were left to the closing minutes.
It was evident that it was not possible to simplistically reduce the debate to one of deep religious faith versus secular humanism, in spite of one of the advocate's statement that death is simply "sleep without dreams".
The hard questions about our right to induce this sleep in others was not addressed.
The advocates of assisted dying were not challenged on their monopolising of the evocative language of compassion, love, choice and dignity to support their stand.
They were not asked if this rhetoric of choice masks a judgement that some life is without dignity and thus warrants assisted death.
There is no doubt that personal stories of intolerable suffering that doctors could not manage provide a very powerful argument in favour of legalising assisted death.
But if the right to die technically means the right to kill, which of us would be able to make that implicit valuation of the kind of life that is not worth living when it comes to our own loved ones?
Olive Travers is a senior clinical psychologist