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Scripting Death: Stories of Assisted Dying in America
How the legalization of assisted dying is changing our lives.
Over the past five years, medical aid-in-dying (also known as assisted suicide) has expanded rapidly in the United States and is now legally available to one in five Americans. This growing social and political movement heralds the possibility of a new era of choice in dying. Yet very little is publicly known about how medical aid-in-dying laws affect ordinary citizens once they are put into practice. Sociological studies of new health policies have repeatedly demonstrated that the realities often fall short of advocacy visions, raising questions about how much choice and control aid-in-dying actually affords.
Scripting Death chronicles two years of ethnographic research documenting the implementation of Vermont’s 2013 Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act. Author Mara Buchbinder weaves together stories collected from patients, caregivers, health care providers, activists, and legislators to illustrate how they navigate aid-in-dying as a new medical frontier in the aftermath of legalization. Scripting Death explains how medical aid-in-dying works, what motivates people to pursue it, and ultimately, why upholding the “right to die” is very different from ensuring access to this life-ending procedure. This unprecedented, in-depth account uses the case of assisted death as an entry point into ongoing cultural conversations about the changing landscape of death and dying in the United States.
Over the past five years, medical aid-in-dying (also known as assisted suicide) has expanded rapidly in the United States and is now legally available to one in five Americans. This growing social and political movement heralds the possibility of a new era of choice in dying. Yet very little is publicly known about how medical aid-in-dying laws affect ordinary citizens once they are put into practice. Sociological studies of new health policies have repeatedly demonstrated that the realities often fall short of advocacy visions, raising questions about how much choice and control aid-in-dying actually affords.
Scripting Death chronicles two years of ethnographic research documenting the implementation of Vermont’s 2013 Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act. Author Mara Buchbinder weaves together stories collected from patients, caregivers, health care providers, activists, and legislators to illustrate how they navigate aid-in-dying as a new medical frontier in the aftermath of legalization. Scripting Death explains how medical aid-in-dying works, what motivates people to pursue it, and ultimately, why upholding the “right to die” is very different from ensuring access to this life-ending procedure. This unprecedented, in-depth account uses the case of assisted death as an entry point into ongoing cultural conversations about the changing landscape of death and dying in the United States.
247 pages, Hardcover
Published May 4, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 25, 2025
Actual rating: 4.5 stars. I found this book while searching for more information on medical assistance in dying (MAID) from a social-scientific point of view. To that end, I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated this details dive into such a salient topic.
First, I want to note that I found this book very approachable. While Buchbinder clearly did a lot of research, it seems to be that she didn't set out to write the typical academic, jargon-filled medical anthropology text (and that's no shade to those books, because I love and read them often). She kind of threads the needle between the typical academic style and a more approachable, often humorous one. This added a lot of warmth and personability to a topic that can often be frightening to people.
On that note, I thought Buchbinder did an excellent job of examining MAID. While she focuses in on Vermont's policy, she does a good job of exploring the broader political, social, and ethical implications of this topic. I especially appreciated the way she frames MAID as an issue which can often take up all the oxygen in a room, which can detract from other more prevalent issues in end-of-life car, but simultaneously acknowledges it as the "canary in the coal mine" for conversations around death. Her concept of "scripting death" is similarly engaging and, in my opinion, makes perfect sense as a lens through which to address MAID. Finally, I also found her conception of "ambivalence" on MAID to be very compelling and can very much see it informing my own worldview and potential research.
I take off .5 for two reasons. For one, as is often the case with these kinds of texts, the beginning is very bogged down in the details. As a future-student using this as a reference point, this is helpful. But, as a reader hoping to get to the meat of the issue, the book felt like it was dragging. Additionally, I found that she occasionally focused more on the positive sides of MAID than on the negative; and it was unclear why that was the case. In one chapter, she says she will describe six cases of MAID, 3 positive and 3 negative. However, the positive stories got far more detail and attention (each having its own subheading, even) while the negative ones were condensed into a few short paragraphs. It's unclear why this was the case, which makes it easy to question the potential biases of the author.
Overall, I very much enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in MAID or social conceptions of death more broadly. I will definitely be keeping this in mind as I embark on my potential-future-research haha.
First, I want to note that I found this book very approachable. While Buchbinder clearly did a lot of research, it seems to be that she didn't set out to write the typical academic, jargon-filled medical anthropology text (and that's no shade to those books, because I love and read them often). She kind of threads the needle between the typical academic style and a more approachable, often humorous one. This added a lot of warmth and personability to a topic that can often be frightening to people.
On that note, I thought Buchbinder did an excellent job of examining MAID. While she focuses in on Vermont's policy, she does a good job of exploring the broader political, social, and ethical implications of this topic. I especially appreciated the way she frames MAID as an issue which can often take up all the oxygen in a room, which can detract from other more prevalent issues in end-of-life car, but simultaneously acknowledges it as the "canary in the coal mine" for conversations around death. Her concept of "scripting death" is similarly engaging and, in my opinion, makes perfect sense as a lens through which to address MAID. Finally, I also found her conception of "ambivalence" on MAID to be very compelling and can very much see it informing my own worldview and potential research.
I take off .5 for two reasons. For one, as is often the case with these kinds of texts, the beginning is very bogged down in the details. As a future-student using this as a reference point, this is helpful. But, as a reader hoping to get to the meat of the issue, the book felt like it was dragging. Additionally, I found that she occasionally focused more on the positive sides of MAID than on the negative; and it was unclear why that was the case. In one chapter, she says she will describe six cases of MAID, 3 positive and 3 negative. However, the positive stories got far more detail and attention (each having its own subheading, even) while the negative ones were condensed into a few short paragraphs. It's unclear why this was the case, which makes it easy to question the potential biases of the author.
Overall, I very much enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in MAID or social conceptions of death more broadly. I will definitely be keeping this in mind as I embark on my potential-future-research haha.
February 15, 2024
Dr. Buchbinder is leading researcher in medical anthropology. This rigorously conducted ethnographic account of medical aid in dying in Vermont did a stellar job of bridging incredibly nuanced individual experiences with broader anthropological and sociological concepts. It was such a pleasure to think so deeply about this issue! Cannot recommend enough!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews