Brittany Maynard's Desire To Die With Dignity

We are culturally ingrained from an early age that life is precious and each day is a gift. Life should not be squandered but preserved.  We are encouraged to live with a purpose, cherish our loved ones and live life to its fullest. But what if life becomes too physically painful to endure, often experienced by many terminally ill patients suffering an incurable disease, or a chronically ill elderly person who lacks the ability to thrive?  For forty-five day’s I watched my chronically ill mother languish away in a hospice care facility. The experience was emotionally and financially draining, and I began questioning whether a person should have the right to choose when and how to end their life. In the United States, assisted dying is a widely debated and passionate issue. Opponents argue preserving life, regardless of how much a person is suffering, is an ethical and moral responsibility, determined only by a higher power.  At the other end of the spectrum are those who support a person’s right to end their life with dignity at a time of their choosing.   Wouldn’t my mother’s suffering been greatly reduced if her doctor was legally and ethically permitted to administer a lethal cocktail of drugs to end her life quickly and painlessly? Wouldn’t the prevailing memory of my mother see her in a better light instead of helplessly watching her undignified death? To deny terminal and chronically ill people the freedom to end their

Every day in the United States 1,500 people are diagnosed with a terminal illness. These people are given few options when determining if the wish to try treatment and if treatment does not work, how to deal with the end of their lives. (author unknown, “Cancer”) With this horrible future ahead of them many may wish to make amends before it’s too late, however, an increasing number of people are seeking an alternate solution. In states such as Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana and soon California a relatively new, legal option is available for people with terminal illnesses. The states of Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and Montana created a law which allows people with a terminal illness and less than six months that are mentally healthy seek professional medical help that will end their lives (Humphrey, Derek) . This topic has created heated debates across the United States with each side have clear and defined reason as to why or why not this controversial law should be processed for the whole country. The people who defend the law believe that people who are losing their lives should be able to leave this world on their own terms, and with the help of physicians they can go in a painless and mess-free way. Supporters also believe that by not wanting to the end it can help save patients, doctors, and insurance time and money that could be better spent on patients who may have options and may not be able to reach them without

Physician-assisted suicide is controversial in healthcare and political realms alike. Currently, this end-of-life option is practiced in five states within the United States. Social concerns regarding assisted suicide revolve around ethical quandaries; providing the means to a patient’s death is contradictory to ethical principles of healthcare providers. Political concerns surrounding the legalization of assisted suicide include disparities in healthcare that may lead to certain populations choosing assisted suicide and the stagnation of current care options. While there is no succinct manner in which to declare assisted suicide right or wrong, each individual must address the social and political concerns surrounding the issue when voting for legislation to legalize assisted suicide or pursuing the option for themselves.

Brittany Maynard was one of the people to use the Death with Dignity Act in Organ and once said,“To have control of my own mind…to go with dignity is less terrifying. When I look at both options I have to die, I feel this is far more humane” (Sandeen, 2014). No matter what, we will all eventually die, but we should have the right to die as humanely as possible. The Death with Dignity Act is an end-of-life choice possibility for terminally ill patients to be given the freedom to decide for themselves what it means to die with dignity. This act allows them to die with dignity by providing them with lethal medications prescribed by a physician (The Oregon Department of Human Services, 2006). The Death with Dignity Act started to allow people with six months or less to live, the right to die in a manner and at the time of their own choosing. Also, even though modern medicine has benefited humanity greatly, it cannot completely resolve the suffering and distress that comes with the dying process, so Death with Dignity can provide a painless end-of-life choice for suffering individuals (Humphry, 2009). Although Death with Dignity is a controversial topic I feel it can be very beneficial especially since people go through a long process just to try to get the medication and the ones that get it really need it. I chose this topic because death always has been interesting to me and I one day hope to have a career

The article “Brittany Maynard Death With Dignity Advocate for ‘Death With Dignity’ Dies” by Catherine E. Shoichet delivers the story of Brittany Maynard. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2012 and was told she had from 3-10 years to live. However, in another diagnose that she had she was told she only had about six months to live. Maynard graduated from Berkeley and obtained a Masters in Education from the University of Irvine. She was a California resident and could not obtain her wish of dying with assisted suicide here. She moved to Oregon and there she became a resident. In 2014 Brittany Maynard consumed the drugs and peacefully died at 29 years.

The article “Brittany Maynard Death With Dignity Advocate for ‘Death With Dignity’ Dies” by Catherine E. Shoichet delivers the story of Brittany Maynard. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2012 and was told she had from 3-10 years to live. However, in another diagnose that she had she was told she only had about six months to live. Maynard graduated from Berkeley and obtained a Masters in Education from the University of Irvine. She was a California resident and could not obtain her wish of dying with assisted suicide here. She moved to Oregon and there she became a resident. In 2014 Brittany Maynard consumed the drugs and peacefully died at 29 years.

A woman suffering from cancer became the first person known to die under the law on physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon when she took a lethal dose of drugs in March, 1998. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act passed a referendum in November, 1997, and it has been the United States ' only law legalizing assisted suicide since then. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 4,000 doctors have approved of the assisted suicide law (cited in "The Anguish of Doctors,” 1996). The law allows terminally ill patients who have been given six months or less to live and wish to hasten their deaths to obtain medication prescribed by two doctors. The most important thing to notice is that this law does not include those who have been on a life support system nor does it include those who have not voluntarily asked physicians to help them commit suicide. The issue of doctor-assisted suicide has been the subject of the heated dispute in recent years. Many people worry that legalizing doctor assisted suicide is irrational and violates the life-saving tradition of medicine. However, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized because it offers terminally ill people an opportunity for a peaceful death and recognized the inadequacy of current medical practice to deal with death.

Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor at the age of twenty-nine. She was given six months to live and the option of full brain radiation. If she chose to go with radiation, it could have caused her to experience the following: fatigue, nausea, memory loss, and speech loss. She began to research physician-assisted suicide and decided that it was the best choice she had left. Physician-assisted suicide is the act of a doctor ending a terminally ill patient’s life using lethal drugs. As of modern day, physician-assisted suicide is only legal in 6 states which include; Oregon, Montana, Washington, Vermont, California, and Colorado. Luckily, she lived near Oregon: one of the six states to have it legalized. She went through with it to end the suffering. More states should legalize physician-assisted suicide because it would let people who are terminally ill die with tranquility and dignity.

In the video “Brittany Maynard Explains Why She’s Choosing Physician-assisted Suicide at 29”, Brittany Maynard takes a very strong position for assisted suicide. Her video reached a large audience when it was released in 2014, as she was the first person to not only openly support assisted suicide, but also then use it herself when she chose to die at age 29 due to her terminal brain cancer. Her purpose is to show people that choosing assisted suicide doesn’t mean someone is suicidal, but rather that they want to choose to die peacefully rather than in a degrading and painful way, like the one her future with stage four brain cancer would bring her. Maynard states, “There is a difference between a person who is dying and a person who is suicidal. I do not want to do. I am dying.” Maynard takes a significantly more personal and emotional take on the issue, comparable only to Jennifer Medina’s article in the New York Times where she interviews patients who have decided to use physician-assisted suicide to end their lives. However, Maynard shows a much more personal perspective in her explanation of why she chose to move to Oregon to obtain a lethal prescription under Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, and the struggles she went through in coming to that conclusion, as opposed to

Brittany Maynard was given six months to live after being diagnosed with the deadliest form of brain cancer; she had recently just turned 29. To make matters worse, doctors had told her she would suffer from the tumor in a slow and painful manner before succumbing to death. Maynard decided she would die on November 1, a few days after her husband’s birthday under physician-assisted suicide. Unfortunately, she had to relocate from California, where her friends and family lived, to Oregon in order to fall under the “Die With Dignity” act. According to euthanasia.procon.org, only four states in the whole country have legalized assisted suicide. Unfortunately, there are many like Maynard, who have to relocate and leave their home or go through a long and strenuous court battle to receive this treatment plant. This is due to the disapproval of physician-assisted suicide.

In 2014, Brittany Maynard became the face for those supporting physician assisted suicide or PAS. At 29 years old and newly married, Maynard was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and immediately underwent a partial craniotomy and partial resection. Her tumor came back much stronger, however, and in April she was given six months to live. Maynard’s only treatment option to slow but not stop the growth of the tumor was full brain radiation, but she opted against this because of the unavoidable side effects of hair loss, first degree burns, and the inevitability of death. In consideration of hospice, Maynard feared becoming resistant to morphine and losing her cognitive, motor, and verbal skills. Even more so, she did not want her family

Today, assisted suicide also known as the Death with Dignity Act has become legal in nearly four U.S. States, the act has legalized the ability for terminally ill patients to determine the time of their death. Since the act becoming legal the amount of patients that participated in it grew 65 percent. The act does come with it’s flaws, but it does ensure major things such as; patients can put an end to pain and suffering when they no longer have hope to of recovering, they can arrange for final good-byes with loved ones, and the act prevents in humane suicides.

The recent case of a woman, Brittany Maynard, who chose to end her life before she experienced the severe side effects of Glioblastoma has sparked a debate on whether Physician Assisted Suicide should be made legal in all fifty states. Some people believe that Physician Assisted Suicide violates the Hippocratic Oath, gives a doctor too much power, or leaves vulnerable groups at risk. Others feel that Physician Assisted Suicide will benefit the terminally ill. Physician Assisted Suicide will benefit the terminally ill by offering the option to cease their pain and suffering with a painless medication prescribed by a physician when they feel their quality of life has diminished, and is no longer worth living. With this option available, people can exercise their rights over their body and life, die with a sense of dignity, make organs available to patients who need them if it were legal, and it removes the physician from the death directly leaving it to be a personal exit to one’s life.

When death is brought into conversation, most might think of the elderly peacefully passing away in the night or the opposite with horrific accidents where an individual cannot be saved, but very little do people consider individuals who make the choice to end it all. As all should know, this act is called suicide and most have a negative perception of it. But what if it is for the greater good? In one of many cases, California native, Brittany Maynard, made the decision to end her life after suffering through the pain of debilitating headaches caused by brain cancer. Maynard received help in her departure through the use of physician-assisted suicide. The acceptance of this procedure is very limited seeing as though it is only legal in a

In recent news, a woman’s tragic story has gone viral. Brittany Maynard is a woman with terminal cancer who has announced that she will end her suffering and die with dignity through the process of physician assisted suicide. She is making the dramatically difficult decision to do this and she is not taking it lightly. However, the majority of the public is extremely outraged by her personal decision. They are outraged because they see her giving up on life and on her friends and family. However, she says that this decision is completely the opposite. Whatever views anyone else has on the topic, everyone in this situation, whether it be very low quality of life due to old age, terminal illness or chronic pain that is sure to end in tragedy,