Right to Die (VICE on HBO: Season 4, Episode 3) – Transcript

00:08This week on Vice, the heated debate surrounding the right to die. Assisting in the taking of a human life is against everything physicians stand for. When they are sitting in this chair, then they can make their own decision.

00:23We're about an hour and 15 minutes from when she's going to end her life. Heat. Heat.

00:54So, how long have you lived here? In this house, 15 years. In my big house, uh, 35. Okay. And in the same village. So, what was here before? Here was a table. Yeah.

01:08But, uh, tomorrow I lay here in my coffin. Yeah. Tomorrow, this is the space. Okay. Yeah. So, the table must go away. You want uh coffee? Yeah, I would love some coffee. Thank you. Okay. Milk sugar.

01:23Uh milk. Little milk. Little milk. Okay. Are you nervous at all? Nope. No. No. No.

01:36It's all people who come around and have tears and cry and that's difficult to say goodbye to everyone. And that's what I wear. This special because uh I made it myself.

01:51Yeah. Beautiful. It's on my card to send around. I'm dyed. Do you want to see the photo where I wear it? Yeah, sure. So, we have to go here. Feel so strong here. So, yeah.

02:11So glad. So this come over my uh kiss my coffin. So first you are uh how do you call it in English? A caterpillar. Yeah. And then this the road you have to go and these are the nice flowers but there are always stones. The ugly stones. So that's about my life.

02:34When does someone become the butterfly? When he die. When you die. Yeah. I worked in the hospital. So I've seen many dead people and you can always see that the soul come out. They are happy really happy.

02:51Nothing m nothing matter anymore. In 2002, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize youth in Asia.

03:08Since then, more than 37,000 people here have ended their lives with a doctor's assistance. But here in the US, assisted suicide has always been controversial and for years was associated with the polarizing Dr.

03:22Jack Kavorian. When there's a suffering human out there begging for help and the doctors say, "We can't help you." And they walk away. You think I'm going to turn away? Never. Today, the practice is legal in only five states, but more states began to consider legalizing assisted suicide when the movement got a new face, Britney Manard.

03:43I know that it's there when I need it. I plan to be surrounded by my immediate family, which is my husband and my mother and my stepfather, and I will die upstairs in my bedroom that I share with my husband. Ultimately, Manard was able to end her life as she wished, but her high-profile story served as a reminder that in most states, Americans don't have that right.

04:07She said her goal was to begin a national conversation about how we handle the end of life. Shortly after Menard's death, Christina Simmons moved to Oregon so she could have the same choice. Christina suffers from ALS, a degenerative disease that causes paralysis, respiratory failure, and is 100% fatal.

04:31When did you start thinking about the right to die or having an aided death? I saw Britney Mayor's story on TV and that just shocked me. I had no idea that we didn't have that option in California.

04:49So I'm watching this going, "Wow." Cuz I read what happens in the end of my disease. The only thing you'll be able to move in the end are eyeballs.

05:01I don't want to go through that horror. And I certainly don't want to put my kids through that. So how old is everyone? Okay, tell them how old you are. I'm eight. You're eight. What's your name?

05:16Emerson. Ferguson. I'm five. Ferguson's five. 10. And then Madison is 11. Christina's husband, Teddy, a former policeman, retired early so that the family could make the move to Oregon before Christina's disease became too disabling.

05:37What does Teddy think about your right to choose and even the idea of it? He's completely supportive of it. And I asked him if there's two in the other foot. He's like, "I'm right there with you." He wouldn't ride it out either.

05:57What do the kids know about what's going on? Do they know everything or they don't know? They don't know. They don't know. They know something is obviously different, but they don't know the full scale. Yeah. Because I mean, I'm 45 years old. I can barely, you know, think about it and handle, you know what I mean? which is why we live the way we live. You know, getting out of the moment of thinking and about what what's potentially ahead of us.

06:23Would it be easy for you to push on my back and work on this or Yeah. want to sit? Yeah. We just tell them what they need to know for the moment and that's all I can do with. But they know that Oregon is a

06:47place you can live where when the time is right. You can end your life with medication. I mean, Christina absolutely is my best friend and my number one.

07:05So, I get it. She doesn't want to sit back and be taken care of and be wiped and be fed. She wants to go. I'm done. It's not getting any better. Whatever was going to work ain't working anymore. And this is where I draw the line. And if you have that ability, it's power and it's

07:32it it's a calmness and a security like like nothing like nothing else. That's a sense of security that most dying Americans aren't granted by their respective states. So, I went to meet a man who's been helping many of them take matters into their own hands. We're way out in the woods in Oregon here to meet

07:55Derek Humphrey, who is the author of Final Exit. He gets calls every day from people who want to kill themselves. I was reading about your career. You start off as a journalist.

08:11Yeah, I was a journalist for 35 years. What were you writing about? Mainly I wrote about race relations, immigration, police corruption, things like that. I was in always a advocacy journalist. So when this subject came upon me, I uh got more and more involved in it. Humphrey started the Hemlock Society which laid the groundwork for Oregon's successful right to die

08:38campaign and he's written two bestselling books on the subject. This was the one that got me into it. This is the account of my wife's death. she was dying of of breast cancer. And uh one day when she was very very ill, she said to me, "Help me to die."

09:00And I thought for a moment, then I said, "All right, I will." Humphrey found a sympathetic doctor and procured the life-ending drugs that are now the standard method used in Oregon. He went on to write the ultimate how-to guide for the terminally ill who want to hasten their death. Final Exit.

09:18This book is a book full of love in a way. It's 25 years old, still sells every day. But it's not just a book of love. It gives in-depth instructions on different ways you can kill yourself. One popular method uses items you can find in your local party store.

09:37This is helium or you can use nitrogen. It's kind of a cooling effect.