Better off dead? review: If you think assisted dying should be legal, watch this eloquent warning, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

Better Off Dead? (BBC1) 

Rating:

Please, not another documentary about assisted dying. How many times can we watch a nuanced debate tackling both sides of the issue, weighing the pros and cons, etc etc?

These programmes always end by joining a terminally ill patient on a poignant one-way trip to Switzerland, an intrusion into some poor family's grief for the sake of our morbid curiosity.

Better Off Dead? was not that sort of documentary. It had no pretensions to being nuanced, balanced or open-minded.

Silent Witness actress Liz Carr was steaming with anger from the start at proposals for what she described as 'medically assisted suicide'.

Silent Witness actress Liz Carr (pictured) was steaming with anger from the start of the programme

She knew exactly what she thought, she said, and had zero intention of changing her mind

She met people with opposing views but, because her opinions were immutable, there was little tension in the encounters

She knew exactly what she thought, she said, and had zero intention of changing her mind. Such a forthright absence of hypocrisy is refreshing. 

Her approach did mean, though, that after stating her case in an opening rant with fellow actress Lisa Hammond, her argument didn't develop or take any unexpected turns.

But what a rant it was. Everywhere she looked on telly, she said, in drama, sport or reality shows, disabled people were depicted either as 'charity cases' or 'inspiration porn — superhuman narratives like the Paralympics, or where you're in terrible pain and now you want to kill yourself'.

If you tuned in any time in the hour, Liz was making similar points. She met people with opposing views but, because her opinions were immutable, there was little tension in the encounters — even when she flew to Canada to interview a doctor who routinely performs euthanasia.

The doc was an oddball, trying to convince us that assisted dying was marvellous, by twinkling and laughing as she talked about terminal illnesses. 

For the only time in the programme, Liz couldn't say everything she was thinking out loud. But it was written all over her face: 'This woman has escaped from a Hitchcock movie.'

Better Off Dead? had no pretensions to being nuanced, balanced or open-minded

This documentary was not aimed at those who agree. It was a counterblast, as Baroness Jane Campbell put it, to all those who 'think they're doing us a great favour by giving us this choice'

Everywhere Liz Carr looked on telly, she said, in drama, sport or reality shows, disabled people were depicted either as 'charity cases' or 'inspiration porn

Everyone she talked to, whether in favour of a change in the law or against it, only confirmed her own certainties. 

If she could have met somebody with an eloquence and passion to equal her own, arguing the opposite viewpoint — Dame Esther Rantzen, for instance — the result would have been a richer debate.

Like Liz, though, I believe the taboo on assisted dying exists for good reason. Shatter it, and many disabled, mentally ill or elderly people will be in danger of being coerced into suicide. Not every vulnerable person has a loving, supportive partner or child who wants only the best for them.

This documentary was not aimed at those who agree. It was a counterblast, as Baroness Jane Campbell put it, to all those who 'think they're doing us a great favour by giving us this choice'.

The danger is that those people, too, have already made up their minds.