Woman with cancer planned to take her life today
tumour, which has caused severe symptoms including frightening seizures. Earlier this year doctors gave Maynard only six more months to live.
“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,” Maynard said in the latest video.
If she decided to take her life today by taking the lethal drugs she has in her home she hoped her family would be proud of her, Maynard said.
Her plans sparked a frenzy of both support and criticism and intense media attention.
Though Maynard is no longer giving interviews, she continues to campaign with Compassion and Choices in Oregon, an organisation that supports the state’s Death with Dignity Act and wants to make assisted suicide legal across the United States.
“My goal, of course, is to in- fluence this policy for positive change, and I would like to see all Americans have access to the same health-care rights,” Maynard said in her video.
After doctors diagnosed the tumour, she and her family, including her husband of two years, moved from California north to Oregon, one of five states that allow physician-assisted suicide.
“Brittany is a teacher by training, and now she is teaching the world that everyone de- serves the opportunity to die with dignity,” Compassion and Choices president Barbara Coombs Lee said.
Since Oregon passed its law in 1997, state health officials say that 1 173 terminally ill patients were prescribed lethal drugs. Of those, 752 have used them, and six people regained consciousness, an Oregon state health department spokesperson said. Others who took out prescriptions may have died from their illnesses.
Under the Oregon law, terminally ill patients – those expected to die within the next six months – must take the lethal medication on their own. The doctor may not physically help, and the assistance is in the form of the prescription for the lethal drug.
Active assistance to die is forbidden in the United States.
“The worst thing that could happen to me is that I wait too long,” said Maynard, who had one of her worst seizures just a week ago. She lost consciousness and even after waking up suffered temporary speech paralysis. – Sapa-dpa