The topics of euthanasia and assisted suicide are getting a lot of media attention recently. Euthanasia means killing someone who is very sick to prevent more suffering. Assisted suicide is less direct. It is when one person helps another person kill him or herself.
The topics have been in the news following the death of a young, terminally-ill woman in Oregon. Doctors told Brittany Maynard she had cancer in her brain and would live only several more months. But Ms. Maynard did not die from cancer. She died from drugs her doctor gave her so she could end her life.
Ms. Maynard had publicly spoken about her plan to kill herself. In a piece on the CNN website, she wrote that she wanted to die before the cancer and treatment for it “destroyed the time she had left.” She was dying, she argued, and she wanted to do so on her terms.
Ms. Maynard said she would not make the choice of what she called “death with dignity” for anyone else. So, she argued, why would others have the right to say she did not deserve that choice?
Ms. Maynard took action on November 1. She was 29 years old.
In the 10 months between her diagnosis and death, Ms. Maynard campaigned for laws to permit physician assisted suicide across America. Oregon is one of only four U.S states to permit doctor, or physician, assisted suicide.