Terry Pratchett defends divisive right-to-die film

WRITER Terry Pratchett said that watching a man being helped to die had reaffirmed his support for assisted suicide, while anti-euthanasia groups criticised the televised death as propaganda that could encourage copycat suicides.

The suicide, filmed for a BBC documentary, has reopened debate on Britain’s decades-old law against helping another person end their life.

Pratchett watched Peter Smedley, a 71-year-old British businessman with motor neuron disease, take a lethal dose of barbiturates at a facility run by the Swiss group Dignitas.