How to Die in Oregon

“How to Die in Oregon” is a powerful and moving documentary that really opened my eyes to what assisted suicide is and allowed me to develop opinions and feelings on the topic. Before watching the documentary I didn’t know exactly how assisted suicide worked, but I supported it. I believed it should be in a person’s control and their own decision in certain circumstances to choose life or death for themselves. After watching the documentary, my opinion still holds strong, except I now take it more seriously. Obviously life versus death is a very serious matter, and while I still believe it should be the person’s decision, the choice one person makes can leave devastation in their wake. Their families are left broken and grieving. Losing a loved

How to Die in Oregon is a persuasive documentary by Peter Richardson, it was filmed in 2007 and released in 2011. This film is mainly based on Cody Curtis, and Nancy Niedzielski. Oregon became the first state to legalize the death with dignity act on 1994. This act is about physicians assisting terminal ill patients to end their lives. Volunteers from an advocacy group called Compassion and Choices, which assists most individuals who use this law were included, one of many, but the most active member of this organization, is Sue Dessayer Porter, who assisted Roger Sagner, Peter Scott, Adyne Wakefield, and Gordon Green. Roger Sagner was the first person presented in this film and was explained the procedure prior to taking this drug. The volunteer explains that the

Today, six states in the Unites States have legalized physician assisted suicide. Even though the Court concluded that there is no constitutional right to die in June of 1977, judges did not forbid states from passing laws that could enact a constitutional right to die (Lachman 1). Cases, such as the Brittany Maynard case, have led to the legalization of physician assisted suicide in some states. Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with a rapidly growing brain tumor. At that time California had not legalized physician assisted suicide, so she moved to Oregon to take the physician described medication. Maynard was applauded for her courage and sensibility. This case lead to the belief that every terminally ill patient’s death is agonizing. In addition,

I want to write my short reflection paper on How to Die in Oregon. The documentary is making an argument for euthanasia debate. The main point of argument in this documentary is death with dignity. The director wants to support an argument on the side of physician-assisted suicide. First of all, Oregon is the first state to pass the law which has legalized physician-assisted suicide. Therefore, the way it presents is showing some terminally ill patients in Oregon who have the right to take advantage of the death with dignity act. It means that they can make the decision to end their life peacefully by taking the medicine if they don’t want to suffer in pain when the death is inevitable. Most of all, the terminally ill patients who involved

Thousands of people who are terminally ill do not have the right to end their life and are forced to live days or even months suffering to live. Citizens who have the right to the Death with Dignity Act are not among those who continue to suffer. The documentary How to Die in Oregon was produced in 2007. The director of the film’s name is Peter Richardson. The documentary was filmed to influence viewers to support the Death with Dignity Act.

Oregon. According to Daniel E. Brannon and his article “Gonzales v. Oregon (2006)”, this case was brought to attention thirty-one years after the United States had passed the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 when “the U.S. attorney general attempted to issue an interpretation...which would would prevent physicians from administering the drugs necessary for the assisted suicide process” (2011). The attorney general, John Ashcroft, deemed physician-assisted suicide as an illegitimate medical practice and any doctor who practiced it “would have their license revoked” (Brannon, 2011). Often, the act is seen as illegitimate because people believe that it is unethical to end one's own life. In cases like murder, it extremely wrong because the dying person had no consent, but when the patient gives consent and has the ultimate power in taking the medication, they should have the right to proceed.

In 1997 Oregon arranged to enact the Death with Dignity Act. This act allows people who are residents of Oregon to end their own life through the voluntary self-administration o lethal medications, as prescribed by a medical professional who specifies in this area of healthcare. The Oregon Death with Dignity act requires that all physicians, patients and other professionals to submit patient information, data, and annual statistical reports to the Oregon Health Authority.

The Oregon Death with Dignity Act was put into effect on October 27, 1997. This act allowed physicians to prescribe to terminally ill patients a lethal dose of medication in order to hasten their death, even though euthanasia is prohibited in the United States. According to Katrina Hedberg, this act has been revised by Oregon legislature, but has still been brought to attention of the United States Supreme Court on raised questions of legality. In order to receive a prescription for the Death with Dignity Act, the patient must reside in Oregon, be a terminally ill adult, and should be expected to die within a six-month time frame. Along with these requirements, patients must be able to make their own healthcare decisions. Katrina Hedberg found that over the course of ten years, physicians had written 546 prescriptions and a total of 341 Oregon residents passed away after the lethal dose under this act. The medications that were prescribed during this time were secobarbital and pentobarbital, and most patients would pass away within an hour of taking pentobarbital. Many physicians have reported that patients who requested these prescriptions often had a loss of autonomy and a decrease in their ability to engage in activities that they enjoyed. The results showed that these factors had increased over the course of ten years. According to physicians, patient’s concerns of pain had also increased during this time. This is still very controversial, but findings have shown that

This article talks about the death with dignity act which was passed by the state of Oregon in 1994. With 51.3% of voters being in favor of the act, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician assisted suicide in the united states. The approval of this act has been regarded as one of the most controversial ballots in the history of Oregon. Many adversaries to the bill have challenged the bill's impact on patients as they feared that many patients would go to end their lives even if their illness isn't really severe and that many would abuse life and health insurance policies. The legality of this act has been challenged many times with some of them including when former congress and US attorney general John Ashcroft from 1997 to 2003

Physician assisted suicide was brought to mainstream attention in the 1990’s due to Dr. Kevorkian’s “suicide machine," who claims to have assisted over 100 suicide deaths of terminally ill patients with Alzheimer’s disease (Dickinson, p. 8). In the early 1990’s, for the first time in United States history the issue was brought to the voting polls in California, Washington, and Oregon (Dickinson, p. 9). The bill was passed in Oregon; legally allowing physicians to facilitate death of the terminally ill, but voters fails to pass the bill in Washington and California (Dickinson, p. 9). In 2008 voters in Washington State passed the Washington Death with Dignity Act (Dickinson, p. 277). Today

Oregon Death with Dignity Act to the national level will remedy the controversy of assisted

There are numerous articles regarding Death with Dignity and Physician-Assisted Suicide. Friend (2011) investigates the history of physician-assisted suicide, the Hemlock Society, and the ethical considerations to physician-assisted suicide. A wealth of information was made available from the www.oregon.gov defending the state’s decision of enacting and the subsequent legal defense of the Death with Dignity legislation. Finally, van Gennip, Roeline, Pasman, Kaspers, Oosterveld-Vlug, Willems, Deeg & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, (2013) performed a survey study in Amsterdam, a country with a markedly different attitude toward Death with Dignity than that of Americans.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld court decisions in Washington and New York states that criminalized physician-assisted suicide on July 26, 1997.12 They found that the Constitution did not provide any “right to die,” however, they allowed individual states to govern whether or not they would prohibit or permit physician-assisted suicide. Without much intervention from the states individuals have used their right to refuse medical treatment resulting in controversial passive forms of euthanasia being used by patients to die with dignity such as choosing not to be resuscitated, stopping medication, drinking, or eating, or turning off respirators.9

For this assessment, I based my film on the concept of the living dead. I was inspired by Tim Burton’s film ‘Corpse Bride’ as he uses bluish hues to exemplify that themes are out of the ordinary. With my main protagonist being a young female photographer, I utilised her as the damsel in distress. The film begins with a piece of paper swaying through the air and landing softly. I used a close-up shot here to allow the reader to see what is written. The point of the close-up is to foreshadow what will happen and thus, it also alludes to the audience that this note is important. From the start, I had decided to start the film with the movie instead of a title as I believe that it will engage and capture the audiences’ attention. The non-diegetic

Euthanasia or assisted suicide is the practice of intentionally ending someone’s life to alleviate his or her pain. The article “Terminally Ill Brittany Maynard Takes Her Own Life Under Oregon Law” explains the case of a woman with terminal brain cancer who decided to change of state to obtain medical assistance to end her life. In the United States, there are just few states that are not against physician aid with dying (PAD), which is the reason why the Maynard had to relocate from California to Oregon. It is important to emphasize that this case occurred in 2014, when euthanasia was still illegal in the state of California. Many in the country criticized Maynard’s decision; this indicates that choosing when and how to die, regardless of