Read Katie’s Choice by Deborah Amelon (The Complete Screenplay 2.6 MB .pdf)

Two producers found an article in the New England Journal of Medicine and took it to ABC who bought it. It was about a 16-year-old girl with double kidney failure who convinced her parents, the medical world, and the legal world swirling around her that her quality of life was so poor she wanted to end all her medical treatments and died soon after. I was hired to write the story and had quite a task because I had no access to her family. The parents very much wanted her story told to help others but did not want to live it again by talking about it. Their decision was understandable. Their daughter was not terminally ill but chronically ill. Because she was a minor it was up to the parents to sign papers granting permission to end treatment. If they hadn’t given their daughter her wish, she might still be alive.

So I had to find other pathways into the story. I flew to Yale and interviewed anyone who would talk to me about her care. I am very comfortable in the medical world—I grew up in it. My father is a physician, two of my sisters became doctors, and all our friends were doctor families. It was the family calling and I narrowly sidestepped it when my brain couldn’t help drifting to making up stories in chemistry class. Thankfully, I observed intently with my lifetime backstage pass to the world of medicine.

Returning from New Haven, my notebooks were filled with clinical info and research, but no story. Not yet. Since the family did not want to be identified, I began calling her Katie and could not stop thinking about her. She came from a large family living on a horse farm in Connecticut. Since the family could not be recognized in any way, I created a smaller family in the urban Midwest. Suddenly, not having the family on board became an asset. I was free to give voice to people who face the prospect of euthanasia every day in a world with incipient laws regarding the issue. I was freed up to do whatever I wanted.

I was careful not to approach this as an issue piece: I wanted to get to know my characters first. I dispelled the dread of Katie’s final choice and began to celebrate the joy of her 16 years. Since it was her decision, she was always guiding the boat, so there was never any question that she was the main character. I was determined to make her funny because not only would it always be her humor which would help us through the darkness, it would make the audience miss her more in the end. She had to be smart because she had the burden of debating firmly held beliefs that life is worth living no matter the cost. I gave her a love of dance, a brother she loved, a sister she couldn’t stop fighting with, a father who owned a restaurant who would close it down only for her, and a mother who ultimately became her greatest ally fighting for her daughter’s decision. I gave her everything a young girl could ask for—except life. Only through the words I wrote could I give her that.

The network executive in charge of the production loved my teleplay and insisted I was going to win a Humanitas Prize. Then it went higher up. We waited. The usual kind of wait where the only sane thing to do is to go on to other stories. ABC finally decided the movie was too politically afire for them. Instead, they made a movie about a woman who was going to die soon and it was the story of her asking her brother to give her some pills to speed up the process.

Haunted by a subject in which I was now well educated, legally, ethically and medically, I wrote and directed another piece exploring it, The Last Shot. It was for Showtime and won several awards. One of my assignments came directly from using Katie’s Choice as a sample for a medically based movie, Hunger Point, and it was produced. Still, I live with hope that the wonder, wisdom, charm and joy of the girl I never met but had the opportunity to name Katie, and record all that she stood for, will come to life in a production.

So many people have said I wrote Katie’s Choice before its time. Her time has come.

The Setup
Sixteen-year-old Katie Carrigan is not unlike most teens her age: rebellious to a point; curious about dating and sex; a prankster at church, in school, and especially during dance class. Except Katie Carrigan is determined to die. After enduring years of weekly dialysis, a kidney transplant from her mother, and the subsequent organ rejection, she’s done with doctors and shunts and well wishes. Now she must convince her parents, doctors, and pastor that she isn’t giving up the fight for life: She is dying with dignity.