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Terminally ill woman, 29, chooses to die two days after husband’s birthday
http://wgntv.com/2014/10/07/terminally-ill-woman-29-chooses-to-die-two-days-after-husbands-birthday/ ^ | 10/7/2014

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Oregon
KEYWORDS: assistedsuicide; bioethics; cancer; moralabsolutes; righttodie; suicide
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To: wideawake; discostu

Tough


21 posted on 10/07/2014 7:22:03 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges

My younger brother died last year - Gliobastoma - 9 months after diagnosis. He’d never had any serious illness in his life.


22 posted on 10/07/2014 7:22:26 AM PDT by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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To: Jonty30
It’s more of a sin to try and extend life when it’s not viable to do so, meaning that spending tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars when your condition is inevitably terminal.

This is where the "black and white" of right and wrong starts to get into a very gray area. You're right about the necessity for weighing the cost of care against the viability of a cure. The problem is that "viable" is inherently subjective and will always be prone to human error.

23 posted on 10/07/2014 7:23:03 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin' on here?")
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To: Borges

This is suicide. this is wrong. You do not have a right to end the life that has been entrusted to you. That is playing God.


24 posted on 10/07/2014 7:25:22 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson (Lutheran pastor, LCMS)
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To: Borges
I think I would look for new treatments rather than euthanasia. From Wiki:
Gene transfer is a promising approach for fighting cancers including brain cancer.[48] Unlike current conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy, gene transfer has the potential to selectively kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed. Over the past two decades significant advances have been made in gene transfer technology and the field has matured to the point of clinical and commercial feasibility. Advances include vector (gene delivery vehicle) construction, vector producer cell efficiency and scale-up processes, preclinical models for target diseases and regulatory guidance regarding clinical trial design including endpoint definitions and measurements. In one such approach, researchers at UCLA in 2005 reported a long-term survival benefit in an experimental brain tumor animal model.[49] Subsequently, in preparation for human clinical trials, this technology was further developed by Tocagen, and is currently under clinical investigation in a Phase I/II trial for the potential treatment of recurrent high grade glioma including glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and anaplastic astrocytoma.[50]

25 posted on 10/07/2014 7:28:27 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: nuconvert

Taking your own life through your own actions encouraged by evil people is a much different subject then making someone comfortable and easing their pain when death is inevitable.

I say your argument is invalid.


26 posted on 10/07/2014 7:28:31 AM PDT by FreedomStar3028 (Somebody has to step forward and do what is right because it is right, otherwise no one will follow.)
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To: freedumb2003
PLEASE stand back and let her implement her decision, Stateist busybodies...

These are not the Statist Busybodies you are looking for...

The trend these days is to permit this sort of decision. The problem lies in the government making that decision for us. And now that government is going to be paying the bills, you can be sure their thumb is going to be on the "suicide" side of the scale.

When Obama says that the 70-year-old grandmother should just get the pain pills instead of the heart surgery, he is not letting her die with dignity. He is just letting her die, cheaply. Whether or not there is dignity is not his concern.

27 posted on 10/07/2014 7:30:11 AM PDT by Haiku Guy (Health Care Haiku: If You Have a Right / To the Labor I Provide / I Must Be Your Slave)
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To: FreedomStar3028

Jesus suffered for us. To not suffer your final hours and die as He intended, would that not be unforgivable?

...

His suffering was to serve a purpose. Can we say the same about this woman’s suffering? Even so, the suffering of Jesus on the cross was of much shorter duration that of others who were crucified.


28 posted on 10/07/2014 7:31:12 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Moonman62
Can we say the same about this woman’s suffering?

Easy answer. Yes.

29 posted on 10/07/2014 7:32:16 AM PDT by Obadiah (None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.)
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To: Borges
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.

I would check out, too. What's the point of extending one's life to include inevitable pain & suffering before certain death? Because it makes other people uncomfortable? That's their problem & it's none of their business.

Luckily, I have my wishes in writing & a trusted person to carry them out should I some day be in a position when I am unable to make my wishes known.

I will not be Terry Schiavo part 2.

30 posted on 10/07/2014 7:32:23 AM PDT by gdani (Every day, your Govt surveils you more than the day before)
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To: Jonty30

That’s not what I am talking about. That’s completely different.

This is suicide, make no mistake. Do not be deceived.

It is suicide, and it is murder. It is also motivated out of greed. God has no care for material possessions, or your tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This isn’t some piece of paper or a house in the country, a car or boat. It is your immortal, eternal soul, and you are playing afterlife roulette with a fully loaded weapon. Do not make the mistake of thinking otherwise. It is a carefully manipulated act of pure evil clothed in fake sympathies and hollow words.

Think on this.


31 posted on 10/07/2014 7:33:39 AM PDT by FreedomStar3028 (Somebody has to step forward and do what is right because it is right, otherwise no one will follow.)
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To: Obadiah

She is our Savior?

I don’t think the answer is so easy.


32 posted on 10/07/2014 7:33:49 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Borges

I understand the predicament, I read the other day about a woman who saved her last bullet for herself, when faced with capture by IS, she chose to deprive her enemy of any satisfaction resulting from her capture, she knew she would have certainly been raped her to death.

I have to admit sympathy with those who face certain death and desire to avoid the torture that will ensue, I also acknowledge this issue presents a very slippery slope, the end result being death as a matter of convenience, much the same as abortion, human nature, sinful as it is, seeks out the bottom of the abyss, the never ending path where murder resides.


33 posted on 10/07/2014 7:34:59 AM PDT by PoloSec ( Believe the Gospel: how that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again)
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To: Chickensoup
Why is this news? Families privately make decisions like this all the time.

Because it's step one in a propaganda plan. First, find really sympathetic people who are in terrible circumstances to use to advance the idea that euthanasia is something that shouldn't be a private thing, it ought to be publicly accepted as normal and even positive. Then move on to step two, a call for regulation. How can we be sure that in this case it's reasonable and ethical? We need a panel to determine that. Then step three: the panel slowly starts to decide in cases where the individual didn't ask. You know, for their own good as well as the good of society as a whole.

34 posted on 10/07/2014 7:35:12 AM PDT by pepsi_junkie (Who is John Galt?)
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To: Chickensoup
Why is this news? Families privately make decisions like this all the time.

This is news because the government is promoting suicide over medical care for seriously ill patients.

The line between "right to die with dignity" and "duty to die promptly and cheaply" is very fine.

News stories like this are supposed to make it easier to accept when Grandma gets sent home with a handful of pain pills because it is too expensive for the government to pay for her heart surgery.

35 posted on 10/07/2014 7:37:28 AM PDT by Haiku Guy (Health Care Haiku: If You Have a Right / To the Labor I Provide / I Must Be Your Slave)
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To: wyowolf

Uncanny !

My father also died at 32 with 2 kids,5 and 2.

It will be tough for her,but she will cope.

.


36 posted on 10/07/2014 7:39:21 AM PDT by Mears
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To: Chickensoup
Horrorshow way to die

Horrorshow is Russian for 'good'.

Хорошо

37 posted on 10/07/2014 7:40:03 AM PDT by Lazamataz (First we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.)
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To: sr4402
The solution is not a good one. The results on the other side can be ghastly.

And there is the most unsettling part about all these ‘right to die’ arguments that get trotted out……they are an attempt to present it as fact that the death of the individual is a good and acceptable thing because it puts an end to unnecessary suffering and by extension, it makes death THEE end as if there is nothing afterwards That is a Satanic lie. Death is not the end, it’s the beginning…. Hebrews 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”

38 posted on 10/07/2014 7:40:33 AM PDT by hecticskeptic (In life it's important to know what you believeÂ….but more more importantly, why you believe it.)
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To: pepsi_junkie

Amen! That’s always been the game of the left.

Find a poor woman that’s supposedly been raped to be the face of pro-choice.

Find a Iraq veteran that just wants to marry his queer lover of 10 years.

Find a straight A student that works at a soup kitchen that was brought illegally in USA by her parents.

Ignore the Gosnells and the serial abortion women, ignore the tattooed ex-convicts that cross our borders.


39 posted on 10/07/2014 7:41:18 AM PDT by MNDude
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To: Borges

There are alternative treatments that give people excellent results. There is the Burzinski Clinic in Houston. There are people that have great success with intravenous Vit. C — there is also the treatment of oral cesium chloride. These and many other treatments are brutally suppressed by governmental authorities !! If you know a cancer sufferer, please encourage them to seek alternative treatments vigorously. There is hope !

Mrs. Esopman


40 posted on 10/07/2014 7:42:12 AM PDT by esopman (Blessings on Freepers Everywhere and Their Most Intelligent Designer)
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