Analyse and explain the way in which a religious or moral issue has been dealt with in a television soap opera or the national daily press
I decided to choose an article from the daily press that deals with the moral issue of euthanasia. There are many articles about euthanasia but I was drawn to this one.
The article was headlined ‘A mothers right to decide’. It was about a devoted mother who unfortunately has a severely disabled son, who eventually won a legal battle against doctors who wanted to let her son die without her consent. The controversy that surrounds this is, does the mother have the right to decide what happens to her son, or should it be left up to the professionals?The article explains how in October 1998 the mother’s son David was taken to hospital with serious respiratory infection and his condition worsened. The doctors decided to remove him from his life support and inject him with diamorphine to let him slip away, however his ‘mother insisted she wanted treatment to continue.’There was a ‘scuffle at hospital’ as she pulled tubes from David’s body and the police were called and made arrests to three members of her family who were accused of ‘violent disorder’ and sentenced between nine and 12 months in jail.However David’s mother managed to keep him alive overnight although hospital bosses accused her of ‘extreme cruelty’ but let her take him home the next day.
In the end Mrs Glass (David’s mother) insisted that her son ‘had a good quality of life’ and took her case to the European court. They stated that ‘under English Law, they said, doctors already had a duty to preserve the life of a patient.’ This meant that hospitals who wanted to withdraw treatment from a patient without the family’s consent had to ask the court ‘unless there are exceptional circumstances’.Eventually Mrs Glass was given �7,000 damages and costs of �10,500. She quoted that David ‘was “a wonderful boy who brings nothing but joy to my life”.The mother was very passionate about keeping her son alive and prolonging his life regardless of what any professional said.
She was very convinced that he had a good quality of life, regardless of his disabilities. She obviously loved her son very much, and was very strong about the point she was trying to put across that she even took it to court. Her family obviously supported her opinion as three of them even got arrested for the ‘scuffle at hospital’ from probably trying to help her.The mother’s views during this article are treated sensitively as the article only states the facts and quotes from the mother, yet they do not say her views were wrong, and the article is informative of what happened.Furthermore the article was not biased because even though it mainly showed the mothers story, it didn’t ever state that the mother was the one that was right because it only quoted her views. However they also quoted the doctors and the hospitals views.
For example hospital bosses accused David’s mother ‘of extreme cruelty’. Therefore it shows the other side that maybe it was cruel to keep him alive considering all his disabilities. Furthermore it shows the opinions of the anti-euthanasia campaign who were ‘delighted at the decision’. Moreover it also states the opinion from a patient’s rights campaigner who said ‘it is a case of doctor always knows best.’ This shows the varied opinions and that it is inviting the reader to make their own decision and is not at all biased, however the journalist is just doing there job buy informing the public about the facts of the mothers story.The doctors and hospital were very against the mothers wishes to prolong her sons life and thought it was cruel, they obviously thought that her son didn’t have much of a life left to live.
Furthermore they predicted that he would die soon after birth. However they did let Mrs Glass take her son home in the end.There was no religious side brought into the article and was purely based on peoples opinions and facts of what had happened.I think that the main purpose of news paper articles is to inform the general public on certain issues that have been dealt with and the controversy surrounding it. Furthermore it may also be to let people know that possibly are in a similar position to the people in the article so they can know how they dealt with. For example if someone else had a severely disabled child they would know how that certain mother dealt with the difficulties of dealing with euthanasia and furthermore it could encourage people to speak up more if they do not agree with something.
Some articles there are serious messages behind; this one is that people should stand up for their rights, and should not let people take away their rights if they know it is unjust. For example Mrs Glass stood up for her sons rights until she got her point across.I think that this article was well written and very informative of what happened had happened. However it was not biased over the mother even thought it mainly explained the mother’s story of her son and how she battled for his rights. It did well on giving both sides of the argument and leaves, me us still undecided on who was right, yet informs us all on what had happened. I think this topic is a very controversial and sensitive issue yet the writer did well to explain it without being biased and without offending certain people.
