I watched my Momma pass away in our childhood home as she was at the age of 69, just one day after Thanksgiving 2015. She had been a survivor of ovarian cancer and 8 years after that diagnosis, she had another scan and they found cancer in her tight lung. She had a surgery for that. In a quick time cancer metastasized to her liver. She endured many months of chemo. My Mom was quite the fighter through and through. I was with her for the most of this. Cancer grew in her liver despite the chemo and then had metastasized again into her brain where two tumors were found in the back part of her brain and one smaller one in the front.She endured radiation on her brain. The chemo had been stopped after a trial of the newest chemo type medication that helps the immune system fight against cancer. But by that time, her immune system was terribly damaged by the chemo and cancer so the medicine was useless. She had headaches. She slept a good bit of the time. She had less and less of an appetite and became weaker. She needed help to walk to the bathroom. Her body ached in ways I don't ever want to experience. She took pain medication but when things became so bad, even the strongest pain medicine didn't touch the pain. I was there during the doctor telling her, my father and my sister and I that there was nothing else that could be done and he recommended hospice. That meeting was the sentence before the last small chapter of her life. She passed in her sleep. I tell all of this because I experienced the horror of what cancer can do. I watched the documentary and found a big missing link in it. Where in all these stories was God? The sadness in watching the family at the end seeming so utterly lost in connection was due to the lacking of God in their lives. It was a terrible sadness. In most of the folks, there was no mention of God. THAT is a huge missing piece to 'dying with dignity'. Without our Creator being involved in our lives, my mother's situation would have been hopeless like many in this film. I feel sad for these families and so many are in the same loss. Why in the world would one try and navigate this uncertain life in all it's many evils without the never ending love, compassion, omnipotence and comforting assurance of God? Even with the support of doctors and family and friends, there is a profound emptiness, fear, and in conclusion to ending one's life in this manner. God must be the One directing this story. In Him, this missing piece of the film can be found.

'How to Die in Oregon' is affecting often to the point of being distressing in its palpable sadness and sorrow. The magic of the film however, is in its ability to artlessly translate a restoring and comforting warmth in the face of such a despairing content. I was left feeling truly grateful to have had the privilege to have seen the film and learn about some of the wonderful people in it. As a study, this documentary offers immediate proximity to people facing a part of life we must all face; death. And that is not an easy subject for most any of us to grasp or make sense of, no matter how much experience we have had with it. What would you do if you learned that you were incurably ill? Given a rapidly approaching deadline, a deadline you thought you wouldn't have to think about in such a manufactured light... not like this; not right now. How would you cope with being told that your body would soon vigorously, unapologetically and almost certainly painfully, deteriorate and part with... everything. Now, what would you do if you were able to take back some control in the matter of your life. And if this were possible, what would it even mean? This documentary addresses the option of physician-assisted suicide which is a matter quite different from euthanasia, (where a doctor is ultimately in control of the procedure) but it is certainly no less controversial. Physician-assisted suicide is a move towards giving terminally ill persons a choice; a choice they, and they alone, can legally make. An individual of sound mind, (who has appropriate witness signatures to report so), is allowed as much consideration and independence as possible in determining when and how they are to exit this world and their illness. It is the patient themselves who is to administer the substance which results in their death, and this is something revolutionary in the western world today. Whether you agree or disagree with the medical, moral, or political advances in this film should not influence your decision to watch it. Rather, I strongly encourage you to add this to your watch list for two reasons: firstly, for its relatable and engaging accounts and the people you will get to meet, and secondly for its skill as a piece of film-making. If you are a lover of exceptional cinema, especially documentaries, you will not be disappointed.Hopefully you will leave 'How to Die in Oregon' with an enhanced perception and tangibility of not only death and dying, but more importantly humanity, and what this means to each and everyone of us. An easy 10/10 for me,Boogie

This movie is an excellent example of how and why some laws should just not exist. During this presentation, we are taken on a journey with several wonderful people with horrible conditions, people who want to be able to end their suffering on their own terms. Cody, in particular, is an absolutely beautiful person full of life and love; being forced into a situation in which nobody would want to be placed. This movie is not for entertainment, it's for perspective. The filmmakers very aptly present their side of the debate to allow a person to end their life, should they choose to do so. The entire movie is beautifully edited, the stories are complete enough to convey their meaning without dragging on- it's truly a work of art.

I have never seen any sort of film that has made me cry as hard as this one. I have always supported physician assisted suicide, but after watching this, my support has grown ten times stronger. After watching ten minutes of this documentary, I became completely focused on it. I only paused it because I became overwhelmed with emotion with the many stories told. I felt like I personally knew Cody Curtis after watching this, and felt deeply disturbed after watching her spirits be crushed by the cancer that haunted her every day until her last breath. I expected to become annoyed with the story because I've seen too many documentaries where they were milking for support by only showing the emotional aspect, but this one was different. After the film ended I felt as if I had just left a friend's funeral. Nothing could have prepared me for this film, but Im so glad that I sat down and watched it. I suggest watching this with a roll of tissue, you will most certainly need it.