Brittany Maynard
Brittany Maynard, 29, sparked a debate over “Death with Dignity” laws. (Photo courtesy of Brittany Maynard.)
A campaign to allow terminal patients to die on their own terms is gearing up in California after an East Bay woman’s heartbreaking story roused a controversial debate over “Death with Dignity” laws.
Brittany Maynard said she was forced to move to Oregon after she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and told she had just months to live. Wanting access to life-ending drugs to spare her from suffering the final stages of her cancer, she moved to one of the five states that allows doctors to prescribe deadly medicines to dying patients.
Maynard partnered with the advocacy group Compassion & Choices last month to share her story and urge for states to consider changing their laws.
On Thursday, a coalition of politicians and religious and community leaders joined Compassion & Choices in Los Angeles to kick start a campaign to create “Death with Dignity” laws in California.
“It is unacceptable that Brittany had to leave her home, her community and her medical team to ensure she has the option to die peacefully, in comfort and in control,” said Rev. Dr. Ignacio Castuera, a United Methodist Church minister and national board member of Compassion & Choices, in a statement.
“It is up to all of us to make sure that we carry the torch for Brittany when she is gone,” Castuera said.
Maynard released a new video Thursday expressing her continued support for aid in dying laws. Her first video, released Oct. 6, went viral. In that video, Maynard said she hoped to make it her goal to live at least to Nov. 1 before taking the deadly drugs.
She said in Thursday’s video she may live longer.
“If November 2 comes along and I’ve passed, I hope my family is still proud of me and the choices I made,” Brittany said in the new video. “And if November 2 comes along and I’m still alive, I know that we’ll just still be moving forward as a family out of love for each other and that that decision will come later.”
California is no stranger to the aid-in-dying debate. State voters rejected a ballot initiative in 1992 to legalize the practice by 54 to 46 percent. Between 1995 and 2008, lawmakers tried four times to pass bills in the state Legislature.
“When I carried legislation in 2007, Californians were not ready for such as law,” Fabian Nuñez, former speaker of the California Assembly, said in a statement after Thursday event in Los Angeles. “I am sorry that because of our failure to pass a law, Brittany and countless others have been denied a basic right.”
Opponents are staging their own fight, saying people should be concerned about the potential for abuse of the elderly or disabled and the moral question of whether it’s right to help someone die. The California Medical Association, Catholic Church and disability rights organizations protested previous attempts in California to create assisted dying laws in the past two decades.
“My goal of course is to influence this policy for positive change, and I would like to see all Americans have access to the same healthcare rights,” Brittany said in a video played at the Los Angeles news conference Thursday.
