Terminally ill woman Brittany Maynard ends her own life

A young woman who moved to Oregon to take advantage of the state’s assisted-suicide law took lethal drugs prescribed by a doctor and has died. Brittany Maynard, 29, was diagnosed with brain cancer on New Year’s Day and was later given six months to live. She and her husband, Dan Diaz, moved from California because that state does not allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with lethal drugs prescribed by a doctor.

Maynard died Saturday as she intended – peacefully in her bedroom, in the arms of her loved ones.

Sean Crowley, a spokesman for Compassion & Choices advocate group

Crowley said Maynard suffered increasingly frequent and longer seizures, severe head and neck pain, and stroke-like symptoms. “As symptoms grew more severe she chose to abbreviate the dying process by taking the aid-in-dying medication she had received months ago,” he said. Oregon was the first U.S. state to make it legal for a doctor to prescribe a life-ending drug to a terminally ill patient of sound mind who makes the request. The patient must swallow the drug without help; it is illegal for a doctor to administer it.

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