eChurch Blog

I’m blogging from my hospital room as I was taken quite poorly, very swiftly, towards the end of last week. It’s a lifelong condition, but I’m recovering super quick this time. Thanks to all you guys on Twitter for your prayers and messages of support. I have my own room now with a desk and fab 3g connection. Who can moan about the NHS when you’re in the crap eh! Spoke to the consultant and should be discharged Monday.

So apologies if this post is a little disjointed, I’m quite dazed and drugged.

On an aside and judging by the meal we were offered yesterday (Friday), I wonder if the NHS has gone  a little Catholic

Last week, I was invited by the BBC World News Service to debate with an ethicist in Canada on the rights and wrongs of the BBC airing the dying moments of an 84-year-old cancer sufferer, broadcast on a TV programme called: ‘Inside the human body‘. I was arguing in favour of the broadcast, and the ethicist in opposition.

You can read some of the details of my position here.

Briefly put, the ethicists arguments questioned the motivation of those agreeing to be filmed dying – implying a sort of narcissism – arguing a ‘slippery slope’ approach, and positing that in general death should be private and not a public affair. I responded that we can’t deduce their motivating psychology, the ‘slippery slope’ is a fair point but shouldn’t deter us, and death was traditionally – and still is in many countries – a communal event.

The radio debate was aired after the TV programme last Thursday. Sadly it’s not available online but the BBC will endeavour to send an MP3, in which case, I might upload to the server for anyone interested to listen. I haven’t had the chance to listen to it yet myself.

I’ve been invited quite a few times to talk on radio and even appear on TV, but have always declined as I’m somewhat shy, but this time I let myself get talked into it.

And I’m very glad I did.

The experience was fab. The technology linking us all together across the world as if we were in the same room is amazing. The ethicist – Margaret Somerville, McGill University, Montreal, Canada – is a lovely woman and was a pleasure to debate with. In some respects I think she came to agree with me towards the end. The host – Fergus Nicholl – was superb, very professional, courteous and informed, which went quite some way in putting me at ease. He seemed genuinely pleased with proceedings and I received some very positive feedback from the BBC by email.

I would certainly do this again, it gave me quite a buzz.

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Tags: Media

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 14th, 2011 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Webmaster's Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.