Posted on 10/07/2014 7:03:22 AM PDT by Borges
A terminally ill 29-year-old woman has chosen November 1 as the day she will die.
Shortly after her wedding in 2013, Brittany Maynard of Portland, Ore., began experiencing debilitating headaches.
While on vacation with her husband in January, Brittany was diagnosed with grade II Astrocytoma, a severe brain tumor. Doctors told her she had 10 years left to live.
“I have to tell you,” she says in the video, “when you’re 29 years old, being told you have that kind of timeline still feels like being told you’re going to die tomorrow.”
Following the original diagnosis, doctors said her cancer had progressed to Glioblastoma multiforme, the deadliest form of brain cancer. After treatment, the average life expectancy is only 14 months.
When doctors told Brittany her death would likely be slow and painful as the tumor continued to grow, she opted to choose her own ending.
On November 1, surrounded by her husband, mother and best friend, she will end her life using medication prescribed by her doctor.
Maynard’s husband’s birthday is October 30.
The medication will give her a “peaceful and painless” ending to her life. However, Brittany said this is not a suicide.
“There is not a cell in my body that is suicidal or that wants to die,” Maynard told People.com. “I want to live. I wish there was a cure for my disease but there’s not. … Being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying.”
Maynard’s family moved with her to Oregon earlier this year so she would have access to Oregon’s “Death with Dignity Act,” which has allowed over 750 people to die using medication since 1997.
Life-rights advocacy organization Compassion & Choices and The Brittany Maynard Fund will provide Brittany a platform to share her story and bring attention to the end-of-life rights.
According to Compassion & Choices, Brittany will spend her last days fighting for others’ rights to end their lives.
Yes to us it is murder.
If it were a choice of looking at the options and making a decision of having treatment that wouldn’t extend life much or refuse treatment and be as comfortable as possible. This is suicide.
Take away the illegality of it will inevitably lead to moral and legal chaos.
Only if they invited the guy up for the view and then gave him the option of jumping. That's a silly example you've posted.
Please provide any article supporting this tired “slippery slope” assertion.
You can do this yourself. Do a Google search on "ObamaCare," "death panels," and the name "Ezekiel Emanuel" to find plenty of information about where this is all going.
I have no problem with someone resigning themselves to a medical condition and allowing nature to run its course. Killing yourself is not the same thing. A review of the interesting Karen Quinlan case might offer some good insight here. In Quinlan's case, her parents had sought legal permission and religious advice (from the Catholic Church) on the difficult question of removing their comatose daughter from a respirator. Their legal and moral grounds were solid, in that they made a compelling case that Karen's condition was persistent, irreversible, and offered no optimistic prognosis.
They received approval on both counts, but it became moot when the hospital turned off the respirator and the comatose woman survived for years without it.
Whenever I read stories like this I always think of the business associate of mine with a congenital cardio-respiratory condition who was given 2-3 years to live. That was 12 years ago and counting. He's now about 40 years old ... and while the odds are against him living to the ripe old age of 80, I'd say that the advances in medical research for his condition over the last ten years give him a pretty good shot at collecting Social Security for a few years.
Einstein is quoted as once saying that "God does not play dice with the universe." There is a lot of wisdom in that. And it's probably not wise to let people play dice with things of metaphysical value, either.
Christ also gave up his life freely and chose that suffering for our sakes. A person with such a tumor hasn’t chosen to give up his/her life that way but he/she does have to face the suffering that goes with his/her illness.
A person could look at the financial devastation such a disease would bring to their families and have to make a choice between treatment or non treatment. However, to take a life ending medicine to short circuit the terminal disease phase is problematic for me. I could see a person choosing to let nature take its course and to let God’s will be done and to not be treated; save going with Hospice at the end for pain and comfort needs.
A heavy barbiturate to snuff out life I think should be outlawed.
“Yes. I want a government big enough, and powerful enough, to prevent my doctor from killing me.
Even better, I don’t just want it to be illegal. I want it to be unthinkabe.”
I believe in personal freedom, as far as I don’t harm others.
Individuals give their families and their doctors specific instructions, for end of life treatments, everyday.
If you are worried your doctor would kill you against your wishes, get a different doctor.
She apparently wants her choice to die to become a ‘cause.’ So they got a PR machine going.
>>Only if they invited the guy up for the view and then gave him the option of jumping. That’s a silly example you’ve posted.<<
Ad hominem ain’t argumentation.
>>You can do this yourself. Do a Google search on “ObamaCare,” “death panels,” and the name “Ezekiel Emanuel” to find plenty of information about where this is all going.<<
IOW you got nothing...
I just want the government to punish and restrain a person who has committed a killing. It is not ethical for a doctor to kill, and one who does --- deliberately --- should be dealt with by the law enforcement and criminal justice systems, as a killer.
All her chances have been eliminated. You don’t know what you would really do if you faced similar circumstances. Maybe she should wait a bit longer if she can still function, but the end result is not going to change.
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I’m sure everyone feels compassion for this young woman.
But there have been many people with cancer who fought to the very end. Their battles didn’t make the news. Tens of thousands of people weren’t spreading their stories on Facebook.
This woman’s story is being circulated far and wide because it plays into the “right to death” agenda, especially with the beautiful photos and all.
While we all feel sorry for this woman, the fact is that, instead of keeping a private decision private, she’s helping to push an agenda that eventually will lead to more patients being encouraged to choose death.
Sometimes patients live much longer than their doctors anticipate. So, when the day comes, I hope this woman changes her mind. And if she does, would the “right to death” people who are using her story now support her decision to live? They have too much invested in her choosing to die.
As a matter of fact, here’s ANOTHER YOUNG WOMAN diagnosed with the same type of brain cancer - stage 4 glioblastoma - and given six months to live.
She beat the odds:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mom-stuns-doctors-beating-deadliest-brain-cancer/story?id=18135106
She apparently wants her choice to die to become a ‘cause.’ So they got a PR machine going.
_______________
Tiresome. Private needs to be private
Patients are sometimes dosed up for Cheyne-Stoke -ing.
Yeah... I think death is God’s decision. I’d probably rest on the pray, read or listen to scripture, and accept whatever God allows to happen.
So you’re advocating suicide?
The woman here rationalizes her decision by saying it’s not suicide. Lies make the situation worse.
Because it is a pretty white girl.
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