The Death With Dignity By Kara Tippets

Brittany Maynard is a women who recommend to people to take assisted suicide because she does not want to see people suffer from pain. However, the author do not agree with her idea. She said that Maynard’s reasoning has a huge flaw. She suggested that people do not choose suicide lack dignity in order to people even take palliative medication but they still suffer pain, personality changes, and verbal, cognitive loss.

2. Brittany Maynard was 29 when she decided to proceed with assisted suicide. She had brain cancer and she could no longer tolerate the pain. “There is no treatment that would save my life, and the recommended treatments would have destroyed the time I had left” (Bever).

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 intent of this article is to discuss outcomes since the Death with Dignity Act was passed. It follows a Physician who has written prescriptions to assist patients with ending their life. These patients are terminally ill and within six months of dying. It discusses the stipulations of the Death with Dignity Act, statistical data, and how this act has increased the number of patients seeking hospice or palliative care. Statistics regarding patient’s reasons for seeking physician-assisted suicide are provided within the text.

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.

Brittany Maynard was a young woman in her twenties who received major news coverage over her decision to use euthanasia in order to end her brain-tumor-ridden life. After adventuring for months before the life-ending appointment, the terminally ill woman and her family moved to Oregon due to the state’s passage of the Death with Dignity law. On November 1st of 2014, Brittany Maynard received a fatal dose of barbiturates which ended her life while being surrounded by family and friends. She was 29 at time of her death (Egan, Fowler, & Keating,

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.

Maynard was the tip of the iceberg for the physician-assisted suicide supporters. She was only 29 when she decided to take death into her own hands and move to Oregon, the state that legalized physician-assisted suicide in 1994 (Historical Timeline). Individuals against physician-assisted suicide had many opinions on the choices Maynard was making. Michael Sean Winters, a reporter for the National Catholic Report states he does not understand Maynard’s lackluster attitude towards suffering. Winters states in the article, “The desire to alleviate suffering, especially for those of us who range ourselves on the more progressive side of social and cultural issues, is especially strong, and especially dangerous.” Winters also comments that individuals are supposed to embrace suffering, especially in a time of illness. Moreover, Maynard took a stand by saying that she was not committing suicide or declining suffering (Briggs). Instead she made it clear that the cancer that manifested in her brain was killing her, and she would still experience seizures and massive headaches until the end of her life, which was November 1, 2014. Maynard was a newlywed, she was young, and she did not want to die, however, she chose what she believed was best for her, her choice brought her and her family the most closure, and that’s all anyone could ask for

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

Choosing to die with the assistance of a physician is a much debated controversial issue in the states. Assisted suicide is where a patient with a terminal disease choose to take their life to relieve their suffering, sometimes with the aid of a physician, and is legal in only five states. Assisted suicide is “legal in Washington, Oregon, California, Vermont and Bernalillo County,New Mexico(Death with).” This option should be available to patients in all states, because terminally ill patients should have the choice to end their suffering if their pain becomes unbearable. Terminal patients should be able to die on their own terms.

Brittany Maynard, a young newlywed, was diagnosed with aggressive and fatal brain cancer. She moved to Oregon with her husband so she could have control at the end of her life under Oregon’s death with dignity law.

The story of Brittany Maynard continues to sweep the nation and has sparked a highly controversial debate concerning the legality and ethicality of assisting in one’s death. When twenty-nine year old Maynard was diagnosed with neuroblastoma and given less than six months to live, she made the difficult decision to pick up and move to Portland, Oregon. Oregon exists as one of only four states that have legalized assisted suicide (Egan 60-64). In Oregon, she legally ended her battle with cancer in a dignified manner (Egan 60-64). The American Heritage Dictionary defines euthanasia as, “the action of inducing the painless death of a person for reasons assumed to be merciful” (Morris 453). There are more people than just Maynard who are strong