LOS ANGELES, Mar 23 (LSN) On Saturday, ABC Television’s national news bulletin showed a film of a man committing suicide by drinking a poisonous concoction containing cyanide. The film’s showing in Spain earlier this year sparked vehement protest from Catholic Church officials in the country. Ramon Sampedro, a quadriplegic for 29 years after a diving accident, made his death an advertisement for legalizing euthanasia. The ABC segement entitled, “Whose Life Is It Anyway?,” translated Sampedro’s words before drinking the poison: “At last I will be free.” Although the segment allowed viewers to watch Sampedro drink the poison, the disastrous effects were not shown. A news correspondent in Spain who had seen the entire video wrote that Sampedro “suffered” for five full minutes from “the suffocating effects of potassium cyanide.” The ABC show also claimed that opinion polls showed almost 70 percent of Spaniards “wanted euthanasia taken out of the criminal code.”
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ABC AIRS SUICIDE VIDEO
LOS ANGELES, Mar 23 (LSN) On Saturday, ABC Television’s national news bulletin showed a film of a man committing suicide by drinking a poisonous concoction containing cyanide. The film’s showing in Spain earlier this year sparked vehement protest from Catholic Church officials in the country. Ramon Sampedro, a quadriplegic for 29 years after a diving accident, made his death an advertisement for legalizing euthanasia. The ABC segement entitled, “Whose Life Is It Anyway?,” translated Sampedro’s words before drinking the poison: “At last I will be free.” Although the segment allowed viewers to watch Sampedro drink the poison, the disastrous effects […]
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