BBC Programme ’Inside the human body’ to screen moment of death and why not?
There’s a little storm of controversy surrounding the revelation that the BBC’s upcoming programme entitled: ’Inside the human body’, will screen the dying moments of an 84-year-old cancer sufferer.
The BBC is accused of crossing the rubicon and ‘normalising real death on TV’. Concerns over ethics of the BBC screening such a moment have been raised and the allegation levelled that this is a ratings stunt.
I for one am glad the BBC are doing this, and I speak as one who has had the privilege of working closely with the dying.
The dying man gave his permission for the BBC to film this, and as long as it is handled in a sensitive and appropriate manner, I can’t agree with the objections.
I see nothing wrong in the BBC’s actions, in fact, I think it is positively healthy as death is a natural and normal part of life.
The process of dying has become sanitised and detached from our experience as we relegate the process to hospitals. In the past of course, most deaths took place at home, exposing us to – and normalising – the dying process within the context of the family experience.
Consigning death to the hospital environment, even with our excellent palliative care, has gone some way in elevating our fear of the dying process. It’s made the experience alien to us and this has provided fuel for death cult assisted suicide advocates.
Death is as much a part of the human experience as birth and I find it ironic that Christians should be among those voicing concern over this, especially given that these same Christians were accusing the BBC of cheerleading euthanasia just last week.
It’s about time we re-familiarise ourselves with the process of dying and this programme will go some way towards this. Hopefully our superb palliative care will be on show as this would help to undermine the euthanasia movement.
As Christians especially, death should hold no fear for us, and if folks were more exposed to the reality of their mortality, perhaps they would be more open to the Christian message.
Tags: Media, Religion Society, Science & Medical
April 28th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Stuart
Did you happen to listen to the Front Row special on Radio 4 on Good Friday? It was the 70th anniversary of the first broadcast of Dorothy L Sayer’s ‘The Man Born to be King’ and the program looked at the writing of the radio play and (as it was the first) the portrayal of Jesus in the media then and now; particularly when he is speaking or doing things not just from the Gospels. An interesting point that Mark Lawson made was the fact that ‘as with many such contentious broadcasts on radio or TV, they follow a similar pattern: HUNDREDS OF LETTERS OF COMPLAINT FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER SEEN OR HEARD THE BROADCAST and then once it is aired a trickle of letters of congratulation and praise, which becomes a flood.’ [I’ve quoted this, but it is from memory, so not verbatim, but you get the sense of the meaning!].
I am sure many of the complaints about the program you have mentioned above are in the same vein! The ‘disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ brigade who judge from ignorance. There is a similar mentality among many bloggers (alas, particularly those of a religious persuasion!).
When I was seven years old, my paternal grandmother died. I didn’t attend the funeral, but my father did take me to see her body, as he did with several other members of my family who died while I was a child. I am forever grateful for this; it removed some of the mystery and sanitisation of death. Death is as natural as birth and our present hiding of death is very odd.
For seven years I worked as a cancer care/palliative care social worker at one of London’s major cancer care centres. On one occasion, as duty social worker that day, I was called to the ward where a man had slipped into a coma – a reaction to his chemotherapy (it is a little known fact that there is a moderate risk of dying from the treatments you have for cancer!). The man had two young daughters, aged 6 and 8 and the man’s wife was asking advice on what to tell the children. Such interviews are difficult and time consuming, it takes some skill to move the conversation along to where a decision can be made, but my advice was that the children should be asked if they want to visit their father. They certainly shouldn’t be MADE to visit him, but they should be given the choice. The net result was the children did visit – so their mother, myself and a specialist cancer care nurse, who could explain what all the tubes and machines were for – went in with the children to see their father. When you work with children in this way you have to dispel media images of children boo-hooing and finding the experience traumatic. Children are very practical creatures (a typical response, when telling a child its father is dying is ‘who’s going to take me to football practice?’ or the like). Yes, they experience very real and deep grief, but it tends to be ‘puddles’ of grief – it was the same with these children. We stayed with the father for five minutes or so, left the room and one child pulled my hand and wanted to show me a cartoon video she had found in the patients’ day room: tears one minute and sunshine the next.
What informed my advice to the mother above was research from St Christopher’s Hospice in South London. It had found that children who felt or were excluded from the dying process and funeral of a close relative, suffered later on in life. They felt cheated out of the right to say goodbye and anger towards adults who had decided to act on their behalf. The real issue is that of choice. It would not be healthy to ram the death of a parent down a child’s throat, but at least to be included in the decision making processes and to have the choice of saying goodbye, took away some of the stress for the children. Feeling we are not in control is often what causes us the most stress and having a choice does, to some degree at least, lessen that feeling of not being on control.
I have been present at the death of many people – and I have even prepared bodies for relatives to view (in residential care I reasoned it was better to see a relative dead in bed in their own clothes than in a wooden box in a satin pixie suit!). I cannot understand people’s distancing from death. It is a part of life… ‘get over it’ as they say in American sitcoms!
“As Christians especially, death should hold no fear for us, and if folks were more exposed to the reality of their mortality, perhaps they would be more open to the Christian message.”
I think this is wishful thinking and my own experience and academic research (http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/301/11/1140.short is an example, there are others) has come to the same conclusion. That is there is a greater propensity among deeply religious people to have more radical and life prolonging treatments. I found it odd, when I worked in palliative care, that often those with overt religious belief were the very ones who seemed to want to cling on to life at any cost. Whereas, the agnostics and nominally religious were more likely to choose quality over quantity of life. I hope I will fall into the latter category. There is much written in the Christian media and blogs about euthanasia, but less about discerning God’s will. People are happy to drone on about doctors ‘playing God’ when it comes to ending life, but little is said about doctors playing God, when they prolong life; which again, I think, indicates our curious attitude to death!
Thanks again for this.
P.
April 28th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Thanks for taking the time to put that comment together Peter. I found it really insightful and interesting.
May 11th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Noone should have a problem with it if the man himself has given hes permission. Its his to do with what he wants. How can people have a problem with it anyways especially as we already look into the belly of a woman pregnant which i find creepy and that kid doesn’t even get a say in THAT!!!! but somehow thats ok to do. That is a sacred thing as well as death and i think the only reason people find it uncomfortable is that because its going to be THEM soon lolOl…. who wants to think of that huh??? None of us if were honest so, i think thas what all the fuss is about.
May 14th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
[...] You can read some of the details of my position here. [...]
May 14th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Popps
Thanks for this. Good points. However I do think most of the inside the woman’s body bit of the programmes is actually CGI – altho’ there have been actual films of babies in the womb, it is dangerous and most of the Michael Mosley programme is done with the magic of computer 3D graphics.
Just as an aside, I walked into Dr Michael Mosley the other day at Marlybone Station Food-Only M&S and I was shocked to find out he is only about 5′ 7″! I towered over him – funny how TV often gives you little idea of a person’s build and height.
P.
May 14th, 2011 at 8:58 pm
I watched with great interest the BBC film the other p m. My immediate reaction was that this, above all ,this film should be shown in every school throughout the Country. What could be more important than to be given the opportunity of watching such a brilliant account of our lives. Thank you to the producers with their brilliant computer 3D graphics. Well done to all the team.