How To Die In Oregon Summary

In the documentary, How to Die in Oregon, the debate over assisted suicide is analyzed through the lens of multiple individuals who are terminal, most of whom are strongly considering use of the life ending medication. At the time of the documentaries release in 2011, only a handful of places in the world legalized assisted suicide, and Oregon was the only state to allow assisted suicide—helping over 500 terminally ill patients from 1994-2011. The documentary presents the benefits of offering legal assisted suicide. This is mainly accomplished through an emotional appeal, but also uses logic to support the emotional testimonies. As expected with a documentary about pain and suffering, the focus is on the emotional narratives to convince the audience of the necessity of assisted suicide. Humor is used to alleviate the viewer’s mood of the morbid subject of the documentary. At the beginning of the film, a physician informs a potential patient that the medication must be taken with room temperature water. His response was that he would much rather wash it down with a cold beer. Similarly, in our first encounter with our most predominant patient, Cody Curtis,

As Cody Curtis, who grew up on a farm, explains: “you don’t let an animal suffer” (How to Die in Oregon), so humans should not be treated any differently. Another instance with logic is when Cody is talking to a therapist about the cowardice in considering assisted suicide. The therapist explains that, as society, we think people who do not want to suffer are cowards, but this thinking is negative because no one should be criticized for not accepting suffering. Both uses of logic exemplify the benefits of offering assisted suicide— an alternative to suffering. Thus, the extreme emotion persuades the viewer that disagreement with their argument would equate to disregarding others