euthanasia

Harsh Realities looks at how doctors, nurses, social services, and advisers take vital decisions about our lives. The third programme in the series looks at the legal minefield of assisted suicide and asks if it is ever morally acceptable for a doctor to help kill a patient. This programme is the last of three chaired by Niall Dickson, the BBC’s social affairs editor. In each programme Niall will be joined by professionals who have direct experience of the subject under discussion. In order to listen to this programme select programme 2 for audio access.

This resource is one of the units on the Open University's OpenLearn website, which provides free and open educational resources for learners and educators around the world. This unit will explore how knowledge and beliefs about death and encounters with death affect people’s lives. It will also examine the concept of a ‘good death’ from an individual perspective in order to enhance the quality of dying.

This learning object is suitable especially for an opening module, as it provides an orientation into the subject and will stimulate debate on tricky legal and ethical issues. Introduction to Law sets out to make users aware of: the importance and relevance of law; how interesting law can be; the many ways that law impacts upon our lives and work; the importance of Law to social work practice; and the connections between Law and social work values. 'Why Study Law' asks you to reflect upon how you see the law through a 10 question quiz.