Terminally ill 29-year-old Brittany Maynard appears to be unsure about the date she’s chosen to end her life.
Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in April, Maynard made headlines for choosing to end her life on her own terms. But now says she’s had a change of heart.
In a new video shown below, Maynard makes it clear that she still plans to end her own life—she just doesn’t know if November 1 is the date she will choose.
“I still feel good enough, I still have enough joy, I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn’t seem like the right time,” she says in the video.
It’s a heartbreaking story with no simple answers. A terminal brain cancer diagnosis does not come with an easy, painless death.
In her most recent video, Maynard described what she calls her most terrifying seizure so far.
“I had two in a day, which is unusual,” she said. “And I remember looking at my husband’s face at one point and thinking ‘I know this is my husband but I can’t say his name.'”
Maynard and her family moved to Oregon so she could end her own life under the state’s Death with Dignity Act.
She made her case public so she could influence policy and see more right-to-die laws passed in the United States.
It’s sparked a national debate, with both sides weighing in.
“She’s not suicidal. She loves life and precisely because she loves life she wants to die with dignity,” Dr. Ignacio Castuera, a United Methodist Church minister, said.
But in an open letter to Maynard, Joni Eareckson-Tada, founder of Joni and Friends, suggested that assisted suicide was not the answer.
“The love of Jesus has sustained me through 47 years of suffering and quadriplegia, chronic pain and a recent battle against cancer,” Eareckson-Tada wrote.
“And I would tell her that the saddest thing of all would be for her to wake up on the other side of her tombstone only to face a grim existence, without joy, without peace, without life, without God,” she said.
Eareckson went on to challenge Maynard and others in her situation to face suffering and embrace her final days with the courage and hope that can only come from Christ.
For more on Brittany’s story click here.
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