Movie About Physician-Assisted Suicide in Oregon

Most screenings at the Sundance Film Festival are jam-packed with film lovers rushing to find a seat. But when How to Die in Oregon was on display on Sunday, there were empty seats. Sheila Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films, thinks it’s because so many people don’t want to face death.

How to Die in Oregon, produced by Peter Richardson, is a documentary about Cody Curtis, her struggles with cancer, and her ultimate decision to take her own life with the assistance of her doctor, oncologist Katherine Morris. This movie arrives just in time for another round of the debate over physician-assisted suicide.

In Oregon and Washington, doctors may prescribe a lethal dose of barbiturate for terminally ill patients, but the patient must administer it without the physician’s assistance. Montana, and possibly Vermont, will soon consider whether to join Oregon and Washington in allowing physician-assisted suicide.

For those who can make it through the film will see that it is ultimately uplifting. Stan Curtis, Cody’s husband, says that his wife understood the meaning of life and that the movie “seems like a story about dying, but actually it is very much a story about living.”

Brooks Barnes, Unflinching End-of-Life Moments, N.Y. Times, Jan. 24, 2011.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.