Sir Terry Pratchett's assisted suicide film denounced

This round-up of today's main media stories includes debate about the BBC's decision to show Sir Terry Pratchett's documentary about assisted suicide.

Charities and religious groups have condemned the BBC for broadcasting the final moments of a man's 'assisted death' on screen, reports the Daily Mail . It says many viewers took to social networks and online message boards last night, to debate the BBC2 documentary, Terry Pratchett: Choosing To Die. They accused the programme makers of 'romanticising' and 'normalising' assisted death and warning it would lead to copycat suicides.

Author Sir Terry Pratchett has defended his BBC Two TV documentary about assisted suicide, amid criticism from anti-euthanasia groups. The BBC reports that In the film, the 63-year-old - who has Alzheimer's disease - went to Switzerland to see a British man with motor neurone disease dying. In a Newsnight debate after the film, Liz Carr, a disability campaigner, said it was pro-suicide propaganda and she was surprised the BBC had made it. The BBC denied the screening could lead to copycat suicides and said it would enable viewers to make up their own minds on the subject.

The BBC plans to leave "no stone unturned" in seeking a buyer for Television Centre, which could attract offers in excess of £300m, reports the Guardian. Confirming plans for the sale, first proposed in 2007, the corporation said options following the sale include housing, a "hub for creative business" and even a BBC museum. The BBC is looking to cut its property holdings by 30%. Parts of TV Centre have Grade 2 listed status, which will complicate any deal.

The Independent says the BBC presenter Danny Baker launched a tirade of invective against his employers as it was announced that the Television Centre building in west London was being put up for sale. Baker, who recently returned to the radio airwaves after seven months of treatment for cancer, accused the BBC's management of being "soulless crumbs" for selling the studios where programmes such as I Claudius and Monty Python's Flying Circus were made.

Sir Bruce Forsyth, Michael Palin, Tony Blackburn and Dame Joan Bakewell share their memories of Television Centre on the BBC News website .

The number of people using Facebook has dropped in the UK for the second month in a row, mirroring similar falls in the US, Canada and Norway, reports the Guardian . It's a sign that the social network's popularity may be waning in the west, though the website continued to grow worldwide, hitting an all-time high of 687 million users. Growth in Facebook use seems to peak in any country once the site is used by roughly half of those who have internet connections.

Assisted suicide: Roger Ebert's latest blog ... - Message Boards

So do I (agree with assisted suicide for terminally ill people in pain). The principal argument against it is religious: God gives life to men, who do not have the right to end it without his will. In a nation which separates church and state, this should not be a valid position. Why should it apply to someone who does not agree with it? If I am in agony, what difference do your beliefs about God make to me? What if I don't believe in God? What if I believe in a more merciful God, who gave me intelligence, free will and responsibility for my life? Why must I suffer because of your more narrow theology? But this means that the moral case for assisted suicide depends much more on our respect for people’s own desire to die than on our sympathy for their devastating medical conditions. If participating in a suicide is legally and ethically acceptable, in other words, it can’t just be because cancer is brutal and dementia is dehumanizing. It can only be because there’s a right to suicide. But I find the passage compelling in support of recognizing exactly the right that he disparages: the right of all of us to, if we choose and as best we're able, set the terms for the single most certain and most personal event in our futures--regardless of what other people's belief systems say about it. Douthat seems contemptuous of that difference of free choice; within the context of a single life, I can't imagine anything more important. This is not to say that we should have "suicide booth" expediency in assisting people to their deaths. As Ebert says, Kevorkian was probably too hasty in some cases (though I'd say that his zeal and his haste were the product of the twisted legal/social attitude this country has on the matter). People do get depressed, or just confused. There's no need to help people act on impulses arising in brief bleak times, and there is a moral imperative to protect vulnerable old or sick folks from being pushed to decisions that are not really theirs. That was the basis for Terry Pratchett's call for an "assisted death tribunal." If the state won't allow me to numb pain through the use of any drug I can get my hands on, and the state will not pay for me to have the best medical treatment possible, and the state will not allow me to commit suicide, then I say the state has to much control over my life.

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