PBS Distribution offers much food for thought as they begin releasing some might tasty DVDs for the New Year
Imagine having an incurable illness; you want to die and you want help dying–what can you do? People who are terminally ill and live in Oregon or Washington, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, can openly ask a doctor for help, but around the country, people who want help dying have turned to friends, family members and right-to-die organizations. They’ve gone underground.
FRONTLINE: The Suicide Plan takes viewers deep inside the hidden world of assisted suicide to explore one of the most polarizing social issues of our time. This intimate film is told not only from the perspective of those choosing to end their lives, but also from the individuals and right-to-die organizations that put them in legal jeopardy by helping others to die.
Hunt Williams tells FRONTLINE about helping his terminally ill friend, John Welles, end his life by shooting himself. “He seemed a little uncertain as to just how to hold the weapon,” Williams explained. If you tried to aim the weapon toward the top of your head, the trigger guard would interfere with your chin. So we concluded that if you turned it 90 degrees that would be the way to do it.” But Williams, 74, was charged with manslaughter for assisting in a suicide, and faced up to 10 years in prison.
Joan Butterstein, 81, is terminally ill and has decided to end her life before lung cancer kills her. For practical and legal guidance, she turns to Compassion & Choices, a leading right-to-die-organization. Compassion & Choices provides Butterstein with what it calls, “the protocol,” a highly confidential step-by-step process on how to end one's life. The protocol recommends a lethal combination of medications that can be purchased online.“I just checked off exactly what I needed, and it came in the mail,” explains Butterstein.
Says Barbara Coombs Lee, President of Compassion & Choices: “What we do is absolutely legal and we do not believe that we could be prosecuted or that there could be anything but a frivolous lawsuit brought against us. No one does this to you. It is not euthanasia.”
FRONTLINE gains unprecedented access inside Final Exit Network, one of the country's most controversial right-to-die organizations. Final Exit Network has helped hundreds of people die, including some who are not terminally ill. For the first time, Final Exit Network allows cameras into a training session, where volunteers known as “exit guides” learn about the organization’s death-by-helium method which requires people to wear a plastic hood. “A death-by-helium is as peaceful a death as you will ever have,” says Ted Goodwin, former president of Final Exit Network. “You breathe four times, five times . . it's just like you're breathing air. And then boom, the lights go out.”
The Suicide Plan details how Final Exit Network’s tactics trigger a major criminal investigation. Final Exit Network members were charged for assisting in the death of Jana Van Voorhis, 58, of Phoenix, Arizona. Van Voorhis told the Network she suffered from cancer and other physical ailments, but what she actually suffered from was mental illness. “Jana was not terminally ill,” explains her sister, Vicki Thomas. “She just thought she was.”
“When you're dealing with areas this complex. You’re so much better off with an open system than a secret system,” cautions Dr. Timothy Quill, a palliative care physician and leading right-to-die advocate. “Even though it's debated whether it should be legalized or not, I think it's very hard to prosecute somebody for this. This is just a symptom of our societal ambivalence about this whole process.”
Radicals. Agitators. Troublemakers. Liberators. Called by many names, the abolitionists tore the nation apart in order to create a more perfect union. Men and women, black and white, Northerners and Southerners, poor and wealthy, these passionate anti-slavery activists fought body and soul in the most important civil rights crusade in American history. What began as a pacifist movement fueled by persuasion and prayer became a fiery and furious struggle that forever changed the nation.
Bringing to life the intertwined stories of Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimké, Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown, American Experience: The Abolitionists takes place during some of the most violent and contentious decades in American history, amid white-hot religious passions that set souls on fire, and bitter debates over the meaning of the Constitution and the nature of race.
The Abolitionists reveals how the movement shaped history by exposing the fatal flaw of a republic founded on liberty for some and bondage for others, setting the nation on a collision course. In the face of personal risks–beatings, imprisonment, even death–abolitionists held fast to their cause, laying the civil rights groundwork for the future and raising weighty constitutional and moral questions that are with us still.
Part One: 1820s-1838
Part One introduces the five principal characters, whose intertwined lives and shared beliefs come together to form a powerful movement that forever changed the nation. Angelina Grimké, the outspoken daughter of a wealthy Charleston, South Carolina plantation family, abandons her life of privilege and moves to the North, becoming a persuasive and authentic public speaker against slavery.
Frederick Douglass, a young slave growing up in Maryland, becomes hopeful when he hears about the abolitionists and their push to end slavery. William Lloyd Garrison finds his life’s purpose in the crusade against slavery, founding the newspaper The Liberator, which becomes a powerful voice for the movement. Harriet Beecher Stowe witnesses the brutality of slavery in her first trip to the South, the searing memory of which will change her forever and impact her greatest work. And John Brown, galvanized by the murder of an anti-slavery activist, devotes the rest of his life to the cause. By the end of Part One, the growing abolitionist movement finds itself in disarray. Increasing violence raises doubts as to the efficacy of its pacifist tactics. But the fatal weakness in the Union has been exposed, and the nation is on a course toward the greatest crisis in its history.
Part Two: 1838-1854
As Part Two begins, Douglass escapes slavery, eventually joining Garrison in the anti-slavery movement. He becomes a powerful orator, reaching tens of thousands more with the publication of his autobiography. When threatened with capture by his former owner, Douglass flees to England, where he experiences life as a free man for the first time. Returning to the U.S. in 1847, he launches his own anti-slavery paper, The North Star, causing a rift with his mentor Garrison. John Brown meets with Douglass and reveals his radical plan to raise an army, attack plantations and free the slaves.
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, following the tragic death of her young son and moved by the plight of slave families being torn apart by the Fugitive Slave Law. A huge bestseller, and then wildly successful on the stage, this most influential work of fiction changes the hearts and minds of millions of Americans by allowing them to see slavery for the first time through the eyes of its victims.
In the spring of 1854, a fugitive slave held in Boston’s city jail becomes a focal point for both pro and anti-slavery advocates. Angry Bostonians attempt to free him, but President Franklin Pierce, an ardent Southern sympathizer, sends in the military to transport him to a ship in the harbor and back to enslavement.
All the attempts at compromise and resolution have only deepened the divide between North and South, touching off a crisis that is about to careen out of control.
Part Three: 1854-Emancipation and Victory
Part Three begins as the battle over admitting new territories is at a fever pitch. Kansas is the front line of a bloody battle between pro-slavery and free-soil contingents. John Brown summons Douglass to a secret meeting and reveals his plan to capture Harpers Ferry; Douglass refuses to join him. Brown goes ahead with the raid, is captured and executed, but not before he turns himself into a martyr for the cause.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln is elected president. The country descends into chaos as Southern states secede. War breaks out. What is almost universally expected to be a quick and bloodless conflict drags on. On September 22, 1862, news breaks that Lincoln will sign the Emancipation Proclamation. For Lincoln, the carnage is unendurable, unless it can be given over to a higher purpose.
On New Year’s Day 1863, Bostonians gather at two celebrations: Garrison and Stowe attend a concert at the Music Hall; Douglass is at Tremont Temple. At midnight, the crowds erupt with joy when it is announced that Lincoln has emancipated the slaves in rebel territory. Not only are slaves free, but African American men can now enlist in the Union forces. Two of Douglass’ sons go to war; even William Lloyd Garrison, the “ultra peace man,” allows his first born to sign up.
In December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment is ratified, banning slavery in all states–forever. For almost four decades, the abolitionists have dedicated their lives to this moment. It is a triumph of perseverance, steadfastness, and in the logic and moral power of a movement that never wavered.
More food for thought, of a much more frivolous nature.
Breakfast Special 2 (who knew there was BS1?) is a celebration of getting up and going out for a memorable morning meal. There are homemade biscuits in North Carolina, breakfast burritos in Pittsburgh, seaside specialties in New Hampshire, duck breast in Philadelphia and salmon cakes in Detroit. On the Big Island of Hawaii, we sample loco moco and Portuguese donuts.
Part travelogue, part food show, part tribute to the men and women who get up early to make our most important meal, the special cooks and serves up the best, right at the table.
Reservations not needed.
Comments