Brittany Maynard's decision for her right for "death with dignity" recently sparked debate over the cause some termed as "suicide." Maynard, who was diagnosed with inoperable cancer earlier this year, publicly admitted her pursuit for freedom to choose the moment and manner of her death.
Given the severity of Brittany Maynard's cancer, KTLA 5 News reported she wanted to access "death with dignity" laws. She made national headlines and moved from California to Oregon for the state's end-of-life options.
Brittany Maynard is an American woman who has terminal cancer and has stated that she will be responsible for her death when the time seems right. She advocates the legalization of "death with dignity" laws, also known as physician-assisted suicide. Only five US states authorize death with dignity and these are: Washington, Montana, Vermont, New Mexico and Oregon.
On January 1, 2014, Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. She had undergone a partial craniotomy and a partial resection of her temporal lobe. In April, the cancer returned and her diagnosis was then elevated to grade 4 gliobastoma, with a prognosis of six months to live.
In order to access Oregon's Death with Dignity law, Brittany Maynard decided to move from California to Oregon. She had stressed that "death with dignity" was the best option for her and her family. She collaborated with Compassion and Choices to establish the Brittany Maynard Fund.
The Brittany Maynard Fund seeks to legalize aid in dying or "death with dignity" in states where it is illegal.
In an article she wrote for CNN entitled "My Right to Death with Dignity at 29," Brittany Maynard shared her story.
"On New Year's Day, after months of suffering from debilitating headaches, I learned that I had brain cancer," she wrote. "I was 29 years old. I'd been married for just over a year. My husband and I were trying for a family."
"After months of research, my family and I reached a heartbreaking conclusion: There is no treatment that would save my life, and the recommended treatments would have destroyed the time I had left," Maynard added.
"I did not want this nightmare scenario for my family, so I started researching death with dignity," Brittany Maynard stated. "It is an end-of-life option for mentally competent, terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or less to live."
Due to Maynard's untreatable cancer, she took advantage and used her case to dispute the option available to her and all Americans with terminal and imminent diagnoses. The New Yorker stated her composure, her eloquence and her youth have intensified her advocacy.
Brittany Maynard's case has fueled debates on "death with dignity" laws. Some supported it but some voiced their aversion. According to The Washington Post, palliative care experts explained their opposition saying assisted dying or assisted suicide underscores their limitation in dealing with suffering at the end of life.
However, Brittany Maynard emphasized it is not a matter of choosing death over life. It is a dying person's right to make a personal choice to end their lives faster and more humanely.
"I would not tell anyone else that he or she should choose death with dignity. My question is: Who has the right to tell me that I don't deserve this choice?" Brittany Maynard wrote. "That I deserve to suffer for weeks or months in tremendous amounts of physical and emotional pain? Why should anyone have the right to make that choice for me?"
Maynard says she feels how her disease impacts her each day. She can tell how her condition is progressing every day. She also stated her hopes to fill out all the joys she can experience in the remainder of her life and admitted her desire for her husband to become a father, someday.
"I hope for the sake of my fellow American citizens that I'll never meet that this option is available to you," she wrote in a CNN article. "If you ever find yourself walking a mile in my shoes, I hope that you would at least be given the same choice and that no one tries to take it from you."
Brittany Maynard had planned to end her life on Nov. 1, with drugs prescribed by her doctor, as stated by Glamour. On Oct. 29, she stated that "it doesn't seem like the right time right now" however, she said she would still end her life at some point in the future.
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