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(AP) Oregon's Brittany Maynard. diagnosed as terminally ill, takes her own life

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Kendall Harmon

Brittany Maynard stuck by her decision.

The terminally ill woman who revived a national debate about physician-assisted suicide ended her life Saturday by swallowing lethal drugs made available under Oregon’s law that allows terminally ill people to end their lives. She would have been 30 on Nov. 19.

Maynard had been in the national spotlight for about a month since publicizing that she and her husband, Dan Diaz, moved to Portland from Northern California so that she could take advantage of the Oregon law. She told journalists she planned to die Nov. 1, shortly after her husband’s birthday, but reserved the right to move the date forward or push it back.

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6 comments on “(AP) Oregon's Brittany Maynard. diagnosed as terminally ill, takes her own life”

  1. David Keller says:
    November 3, 2014 at 10:18 pm

    Why do doctors in liberal states like Oregon believe it is immoral to prescribe drugs to execute murderers, but think this is alright?

  2. Br. Michael says:
    November 3, 2014 at 11:50 pm

    Don’t know. Not logical is it.

  3. David Keller says:
    November 4, 2014 at 3:02 am

    Nope

  4. Jim the Puritan says:
    November 4, 2014 at 4:58 am

    I can’t look at this stuff without getting upset. Many years ago I knew a very nice girl in college who died of leukemia. She was beautiful, nice and talented. And her Dad was a leading doctor nationally but could not do anything to save her. Unbelievably sad. These situations are just tragic. I know God’s not responsible but it still is horrible nonetheless.

  5. Cranmerian says:
    November 4, 2014 at 7:04 am

    One blogger on one of the news reports of this story made an interesting observation, and I think he was spot on. He said that once this type of activity becomes the norm, and we start seeing and hearing all of the gut wrenching stories about how this is a much more humane way to end one’s life, when do we start down the slippery slope of taking this decision away from the patient, and have caregivers make that decision for someone else? When do children start deciding that it would be better to put mom or dad out of their misery before they suffer and begin to make those decisions for someone else? Worse than that, when is a parent going to end the life of one of their children who may have been born with Down Syndrome or other birth defect and get a doctor to allow the parent to kill their children “for their own well-being” and “comfort”? I think we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg here from an ethical and moral standpoint.

  6. Branford says:
    November 5, 2014 at 12:52 am

    Cranmerian, this has been happening for years in the Netherlands, where the right to die has morphed for some into the duty to die:

    “Another important safeguard requires that there must be an explicit request of the patient, but Biggar cites a 1990 study which found that an astounding 30% of patient killings (1000 times in 3300 total cases) were done without such consent. Most of these patients killed were ruled noncompetent (like those in a persistent vegetative state, for instance) and Keown notes that interviews with physicians established that 14% of the patients were totally competent and a further 11% partly competent. In addition, according to Biggar the reasons given for the killing involved:
    “the absence of any prospect of improvement (60%); the futility of all medical therapy (39%); avoidance of ‘needless prolongation’ (33%); the relatives’ inability to cope (32%) and ‘low quality of life’ (31%). Pain or suffering was mentioned by only 30%.”