OUR Right to Die in PEACE ~ Brittany Maynard, Assisted Suicide Advocate, Ends Her Life ~ (story below) I am sure many well disagree with this posting but as a patient, patient advocate and advocate for assisted suicide - as they call it .. I dont like the term suicide nor its implications in this particular circumstances .. rather assisted passing seems more appropriate. ME I call it .. My right to choose a compassionate dignified death surrounded by those I love and who love me in my final Moments .. ME, I would choose the same for myself .. to go to sleep in dignity and peace vs pain, daily suffering, loss of body mind spirit, losing the capacity to choose for yourself leaving you open top torturous medical interventions to so call prolong life me I say it prolongs suffering ... I have seen - being ill for the last 12 years I have seen just far too much .. more than we all know or even realize goes on behind the walls of hospitals, cancer centers and so on .. that is what terminal illness or a chronic life long illness takes away from you .. to be HUMAN! ☆☆☆ Brittany Maynard, 29, who was diagnosed with a stage 4 glioblastoma, a terminal and aggressive brain tumor, ended her life Saturday in Portland, Oregon, with a fatal dose of barbiturates a physician prescribed. The nonprofit organization Compassion & Choices, which partnered with Maynard in October and established a fund in her name to advocate for promoting right-to-die legislation, announced her death Sunday. The decision came after Maynards tortured process in choosing the right day to die. In a video released October 29, she said she was reconsidering the early November date she had set because she felt well. But losing her capacity to make the choice was one of her greatest fears. I risk it every day, every day that I wake up, she said. On Sunday, Compassion & Choices posted on Facebook that she passed peacefully in her bed surrounded by close family and loved ones. Maynard was married in September 2012 and diagnosed in January 2014. After she was told in April that she would have 6 months to live, she and her family moved from Californias San Francisco Bay area to Oregon, one of five states, in addition to Washington, Montana, Vermont, and New Mexico, that allow physician-assisted suicide. Country Divided on Practice Physician-assisted suicide has been heatedly debated, and a national poll taken by the Pew Research Center in 2013 shows the country is divided: 47% approve of the practice and 49% disapprove. Those numbers are virtually unchanged since Pew asked the question in 2005. Physicians also wrestle with the role they are asked to play in such scenarios. As reported in Medscape Medical News, in the United Kingdom, British physicians are debating whether to legalize the practice. The British Medical Association is opposed, but its subsidiary journal, the BMJ, is in favor. A Medscape poll that accompanied the story asked readers worldwide: Do you approve or disapprove of physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients? More than half, 54%, said they strongly approved; 24% strongly disapproved, 17% somewhat approved, 3% somewhat disapproved, and 2% were uncertain. When asked whether, if you lived outside the United Kingdom, you would want physician-assisted suicide to be legalized in your country if it is not already legal, 69% answered yes, 26% answered no, and 5% were uncertain. Young Age Adds to Debate Maynards age brought a new image of assisted suicide to the debate that typically centers on much older patients. In a previous Medscape commentary, Art Caplan, PhD, director, Division of Medical Ethics, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York City, said Maynards death may speak to a new generation. Critics are worried about her partly because shes speaking to that new audience, and they know that the younger generation of America has shifted attitudes about gay marriage and the use of marijuana, and maybe they are going to have that same impact in pushing physician-assisted suicide forward.... My forecast is that we are going to see more push to put these laws in front of state legislatures and to get them on state ballots, he concludes. We are going to see more states move in this direction.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 18:25:54 +0000
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