Margaret Somerville

About the author: Margaret Somerville is an ethicist professor on both the faculty of law and the faculty of medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is also the founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law and is active in the worldwide development of bioethics and the study of the wider legal and ethical aspects of medicine and science. Somerville speaks and has published books nationally and internationally, includingfrom which the following viewpoint was excerpted.

Much of the debate about euthanasia is carried out in the mass media. Consequently, media ethics and journalists' values shape the public's perceptions of euthanasia. Because of the nature of television, where news stories are expected to have entertainment value, coverage of the euthanasia issue, which requires...