New Brittany Maynard Video Released Nearly 1 Year After Her Death
A new video shows the impact of Brittany Maynard’s message that people have a right to die on their own terms. (Video: The Brittany Fund)
Death-with-dignity advocate Brittany Maynard speaks out about her cause in a new video released nearly a year after her death — and just one day after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state’s End of Life Option Act into law, following a prolonged battle in the state’s legislature.
Maynard, who suffered from terminal brain cancer and quickly became the face of the death-with-dignity movement, ended her life in November 2014 with medication prescribed by her doctor.
“When you realize that you’re going to die and you learn how you’re going to die, you have choices to make … and those choices aren’t easy,” Maynard says in the video, which was recorded in August 2014.
Maynard was diagnosed with an aggressive and terminal form of brain cancer in 2014. After treatments and surgery proved ineffective, she moved with her family from California to Oregon before her death to take advantage of that state’s Death With Dignity Act, which legalizes physician-assisted death, albeit with restrictions. (California passed a similar law on Monday.) She died just a few days before her 30th birthday.
“I looked at passing away in hospice care in California, and I really didn’t like what that would look like for me,” she says in the video. Maynard added that she felt a a “tremendous sense of relief” after having the prescription filled for medication that eventually allowed her to die on her own terms.
The video, which was released by the right-to-die nonprofit Compassion & Choices to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the organization’s partnership with the Maynard family, also features Maynard’s husband, Dan Diaz, as well as her mother, Debbie Ziegler.
Related: One Woman’s Quest to Die With Dignity — and What It Means for Us All
Diaz echoed Maynard’s sentiment that her prescription gave her a sense of relief. “She didn’t have to be terrorized by that tumor any longer,” he added.
Diaz also says that his wife was “surprised” by all of the attention that came with sharing her story but hoped that it would help raise awareness of death with dignity as well as influence lawmakers.
“I chose this for myself,” Maynard says. “I would never sit here and tell anyone else that they should choose it for them. But my question is: Who thinks that they can sit there and tell me that I don’t deserve this choice?”
“Sometimes when life presents you with opportunities to do something that’s important, it’s really important not to turn your back on that opportunity” she continued. “And so I’m just really trying to follow what I believe in my heart and in my mind is right.”
Maynard also had a plea for people watching, regardless of their views on the controversial issue: “Pay attention to your relationships. Pay attention to what you value, to who you spend time with, to what you choose to make important in your daily life. If something is going to get taken away from you quickly, it’s not the stuff of life that’s going to matter to you at all.”
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