Brittany Maynard was 29 when she decided to take her own life.

Maynard found out that she had a brain tumor and that she was only going to live for about another six months. She was only in her first year of her marriage and had just started a new chapter in her life, but when she discovered the brain tumor she decided it was not something that she wanted to live with.

The tumor growing in Maynard’s brain was so large that she would have to go through full brain radiation, which would remove her hair and leave her with first-degree burns on her scalp. If radiation did not get rid of the tumor, which Maynard was told would be likely, then she would literally begin to lose her mind and spend months of her life in the hospital. Maynard decided she was not going to put herself or her family through that kind of pain. She would rather “die with dignity.”

Maynard died before her tumor could change her life.

In Maynard’s home state of California it is not legal to die with dignity, so Maynard and her family uprooted to Oregon, one of the only three states where assisted suicide is legal. Maynard and her husband had to become citizens of Oregon and change their entire lives to live in the state. Only then Maynard could get the medication prescribed by a doctor to help her take her life.

“I’ve had the medication for weeks. I am not suicidal. If I were, I would have consumed that medication long ago. I do not want to die. But I am dying. And I want to die on my own terms,” Maynard said in an interview with CNN. 

The decision to take her own life was one that nobody could make besides Brittany Maynard. Nobody else knew what she was going through personally and how she was dealing with living with terminal cancer. Maynard died peacefully in her bed with her husband and family by her side.

In Maynard’s home state, if her family were in attendance when she died, it would have been considered illegal. In the states of Oregon, Washington and Vermont, a doctor can prescribe dying people an aid to take their lives at their own wills.

The choice to make these decisions would more than likely be the toughest decision anyone has to make, but it is a choice that people deserve to make. We are allowed to make the decision to abort a fetus and to put down a pet, but when it comes to taking one’s own life, the people that help someone seek the peace that comes from death would be punished by the law. 

While it can be understood that not everyone who is dying would want to take his or her own life, people deserve to be able to make the decision. If they choose to have their families with them, they should not have to worry about being punished.