Earlier this month, 29 year old newlywed Brittany Maynard, who was suffering from terminal brain cancer, ended her life in the US State of Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal. She passed away “surrounded by close family and loved ones.”   Maynard defended her right to assisted suicide by saying, “For people to argue against this choice for sick people really seems evil to me. They try to mix it up with suicide and that’s really unfair, because there’s not a single part of me that wants to die. But I am dying.” She had released two videos focusing on her pro-euthanasia decision, and on her wedding and recent completion of a ‘bucket list’.   Philip Johnson, a 30-year-old seminarian for the US Diocese of Raleigh, who suffer from a similar condition, argues that life, even living with a terminal illness, is worth living.   To Do:
  • Read the Irish Times article about Brittany Maynard:
  http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/right-to-die-campaigner-brittany-maynard-ends-her-own-life-1.1986195#.VFinX41ccyM.email  
  • Then, for an alternative perspective, read Fr. Philip Johnson’s response from last week’s Irish Catholic: 
    http://irishcatholic.ie/article/life-fragile-and-worth-living  
  • Check out lesson 9 from the Senior Cycle textbook, Seek and Find. This chapter, The Big Questions of Life and Death, also has good material on the dignity of human life.