Re-Thinking the End of Life

On Wednesday evening, October 12th at 6:00 p.m. in Callahan Hall, LPL will be presenting a special documentary film and community discussion on Re-Thinking the End of Life. The facilitator for the evening will be Valerie Lovelace, the Executive Director of It’s My Death, a Maine-based nonprofit. The program is free and open to the public.

The evening will open with the showing of the film, How to Die in Oregon, the winner of the grand jury prize for documentaries at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. In 1994, Oregon became the 1st state to legalize physician-assisted death. The law was blocked for 3 years and finally enacted in 1997. Since then, 991 Oregonians have taken their mortality into their own hands.

“How to Die…” was created by filmmaker Peter Richardson who entered the lives of the terminally ill as they considered whether – and when – to end their lives by a legally prescribed lethal overdose. Richardson examines both sides of this complex, emotionally charged issue. What emerges is a life-affirming, staggeringly powerful portrait of what it means to die with dignity.

Educator Valerie Lovelace is the founder of It’s My Death whose mission is providing services and education to people wishing to actively explore the meaning of life through embracing the certainty of death. One of IMD’s goals is to help break societal taboos surrounding how we die.

For more information on this LPL event, contact our Adult & Teen Services Department at 513-3135 or via email at LPLReference@Gmail.com