A young woman who has fearlessly run half-marathons and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro now faces a more daunting task: taking her own life.
But Brittany Maynard, 29, insists she's not the least bit suicidal, People magazine reports.
"There is not a cell in my body that is suicidal or that wants to die," she says. "I want to live. I wish there was a cure for my disease but there's not."
Diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, Maynard has moved with her family to Oregon so she can legally kill herself with lethal medication prescribed under the Oregon Death With Dignity Act.
Experts tell her that death by stage 4 glioblastoma would be "a terrible, terrible way to die," Maynard says, and "being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying."
Her husband, mother, stepfather, and closest friend (who is a doctor) will be by her side when she goes.
Maynard has also joined the nonprofit Compassion & Choices, which is advocating for death-with-dignity laws in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Colorado, and California, Inquisitr reports. So far, four states — New Mexico, Vermont, Montana, and Washington — have joined Oregon in passing such laws.
The Oregon Health Authority reports that 122 people were prescribed the end of life drugs in 2013 and 71 used them to die. Others mostly died of natural causes. Some are prescribed drugs that are not used in the same calendar year.
Those who died last year ranged in age from 42 to 96 with a median of 71. Most were white, about half having earned baccalaureate degrees. The majority suffered from cancer, the report states. The time from ingestion of the drugs to death ranged from five minutes to 5.6 hours, the report states.
Oregon voters approved the law in 1994 but it was halted by an injunction lifted in October, 1997. A month later, voters soundly rejected a measure which would have repealed the act. Since the implementation of the Oregon Death with Dignity law, 1,173 people have died using the act.
Maynard says she'll help the cause by giving California lawmakers videotaped testimony in mid-October. Then, two days after her husband's Oct. 30 birthday, she plans to end her life.
"I'm getting sicker, dealing with more pain and seizures and difficulties so I just selected (the date)," she says. "I'm dying, but I'm choosing to suffer less, to put myself through less physical and emotional pain and my family as well."
