A Note from Brittany
The response from you all has surpassed our wildest expectations. On behalf of my family, thank you for the outpouring of love and support.
This journey has been challenging, to say the least. We've uprooted our lives. I take prescription drugs to reduce the swelling in my brain, that have caused my entire body to swell instead. Dan and I have given up our dreams of having a family. My mother is soon to lose her only child. We can all agree that no parent should bury their child.
I didn't launch this campaign because I wanted attention; in fact, it's hard for me to process it all. I did this because I want to see a world where everyone has access to death with dignity, as I have had. My journey is easier because of this choice.
I am so lucky to have known the love of an amazing husband (my husband Dan is a hero), a loving, caring mother, and an incredible group of friends and extended family. As my time draws closer, I hope you will all take up my request to carry on this work, and support them as they carry on my legacy. I'm so grateful to you all.
– Brittany Maynard
About Brittany Maynard
This spring, 29-year-old newlywed Brittany Maynard learned that she had terminal brain cancer. After careful assessment of her prognosis and end-of-life choices, she and her family reluctantly decided to move from their San Francisco Bay Area home to Oregon, one of five states (including Washington, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico) that authorize death with dignity.
Brittany and Dan on their wedding day, September 2012
Brittany recognizes it is unfair that the vast majority of people cannot access death with dignity because they do not have the resources and time to uproot their family, seek appropriate medical care and establish a support system.
As a result, in the few weeks she has left to live, Brittany wants to advocate for access for death with dignity in California and nationwide in partnership with Compassion & Choices, the nation's leading end-of-life choice advocacy organization.
Brittany Maynard's glioblastoma brain tumor is being treated with several strong prescription drugs designed to reduce swelling of the brain and to try to minimize debilitating seizures. Unfortunately, these drugs come with their own frustrating set of side effects including rapid weight gain and swelling of the face. In spite of some profound shyness regarding her new prescription drug-induced appearance, Brittany agreed to be interviewed on film regarding Death with Dignity because her strong belief in the ethics of this basic healthcare human right.
Brittany's mission is to keep her legacy alive through advocacy work, while bringing the lessons she has learned to her fellow millennials: in our time on earth all that counts are the people you love and the people who love you. Appreciate them. Don't miss a moment.
What is death with dignity?
Death with dignity is an option every person deserves, to reduce suffering at the end of life and die in comfort and control, with dignity. It has been ruled a constitutionally protected right in state and federal courts. Death-with-dignity or aid in dying is a medical practice in which a terminally ill and mentally competent adult requests, and a doctor prescribes, a life-ending medication the person self-administers. Recent national polling puts public support for aid in dying at 70 percent.
Brittany in San Francisco with her dog Charley
- For Brittany, it means that when her suffering becomes too great, she can call everyone she loves to her side as she tells them she loves them and they say goodbye. For anyone who takes the prescription, it means falling off to sleep and peacefully passing on.
- Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, which Brittany accessed, was the first in the nation. Its 17-year history shows that death-with-dignity laws are safe and work as designed. It has been thoroughly documented by the state health department, investigated by medical researchers and monitored by the news media. None of the concerns raised by opponents about coercion or abuse have ever materialized.
- Death-with-dignity laws are voluntary. An eligible person can request the prescription, but no doctor is obligated to provide it. Once a prescription is written, the patient chooses when and whether to fill it – or take it. Most people never take it. Simply having the choice provides people a sense of peace in the face of uncertainty and fear that their suffering might be unbearable. It allows people the freedom to die in control, with dignity.
About Compassion & Choices
As the oldest and largest organization working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life, Compassion & Choices operates many programs and services.
Compassion & Choices advocates for death with dignity laws in states across the country so that every American can have the sense of peace that Brittany sought – without having to entirely uproot their life. The Brittany Maynard Fund, an initiative of Compassion & Choices, will be used to advance such laws.
Brittany with her mom Debbie, at age four
We use legal strategies, ballot measures and legislative efforts to make death with dignity accessible state-by-state. Currently we are campaigning in five states (California, Colorado, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut) for laws that will make aid in dying an authorized, regulated medical practice. Where it is already authorized (Montana, New Mexico, Vermont, Washington and Oregon) we run ongoing education campaigns for the public and health providers to expand access to aid in dying.
Our End of Life Consultation (EOLC) program provides free, confidential support anywhere in the country with trained experts who help people improve the quality of life they have left, achieve a peaceful death or plan ahead.
Our website is also a hub for resources to help families and individuals make their end of life plans. Compassion & Choices makes these resources available to help people start the conversation and make their wishes known so they can avoid unnecessary suffering in their final days and weeks.
Compassion & Choices is also active in the policy arena, and participates in the federal Campaign to End Unwanted Medical Treatment (End UMT). It is a coalition of organizations committed to helping health care consumers get the best treatment, and the treatment they want – no more and no less.
Show your support for Brittany!
Brittany Maynard's story has captivated the nation and become a social media phenomenon; her video has been seen millions of times around the world. There are now millions more people who know the importance of access to death with dignity.
For her message to have its greatest impact, we need to continue to get the word out, and social sharing is at the heart of this effort.
Join millions of other folks who have shown their support for Brittany by sharing these messages on your social networks.
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