Her Right to Die

On Nov. 1 a 29-year-old woman died in Oregon, just as she had carefully planned. 

But her death was not a suicide. There's no question that the terminally-ill woman - Brittany Maynard - who had become synonymous during the preceding weeks with the Death with Dignity law that allowed her a medically-assisted hastened death would have chosen life and all that came with it - travel, adventures, motherhood, family - if that had been an option. Tragically, because of her untreatable brain cancer, it was not.

After being given a six-month life (or death, depending on how you view it) term in April, knowing that the cancer would slowly, painfully, inevitably end her life, she took action, becoming a Death with Dignity recipient and advocate, moving with her husband from California to Oregon, a state that allowed medical-assisted death, as her health and quality of life diminished, while she still had the ability to choose. Simply put (in a story where nothing was simple), she chose quality over quantity. Who could blame her?

Unfortunately many, many people did. Although it was a very personal choice, one that she made after thoroughly researching her condition and concluding that there were no possible treatment options, everyone had an opinion regarding the life and death of this woman they had never met. Suddenly her previously unknown existence was everyone's business. Why? Because she bravely made it our business. 

Prior to her death, Brittany wrote a moving essay (My right to death with dignity at 29) published on CNN.com in which she explained that she did not want to die but had accepted, after months of tumultuous soul-searching, that she would. Scheduling her death for Nov. 1 (a few days after her husband's birthday) and filling the prescription for her life-ending medication brought her peace and comfort, she wrote, that she would not otherwise have had. She was afraid of dying, not of death. As she wrote in her essay,

"Having this choice at the end of my life has become incredibly important. It has given me a sense of peace during a tumultuous time that otherwise would be dominated by fear, uncertainty and pain.

Now, I'm able to move forward in my remaining days or weeks I have on this beautiful Earth, to seek joy and love and to spend time traveling to outdoor wonders of nature with those I love. And I know that I have a safety net."

She just wanted peace, enough to enjoy her final weeks, but she courageously made her story public because she wanted others who might someday be faced with the same unyielding circumstances and the same inevitable decisions to have the same choice.

It is my sincere hope that she turned off her computer and tuned out the naysayers (all those who posted in online forums that she was choosing "suicide" instead of natural death, playing God, robbing herself of a possible cure, acting hastily, was selfish, ignorant, uninformed, and ungodly, and consequently bound for hell) during her final days and instead tuned in to the loving support of her family and friends.

Believe me when I say that, having lost a friend to suicide and nearly losing a family member to attempted suicide, I am not an advocate for suicide under any circumstances. It's never the answer. But there's a difference for me between choosing death when life is an option and accepting death when there's no other choice.