Brittany Maynard, the young newlywed who made headlines when she announced she would end her life after being diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor, ended her own life peacefully at her Oregon home on Saturday, NPR reported.
She reinvigorated a debate over assisted suicide in the United States after speaking publicly about her intent to commit suicide when the time was right. Maynard, 29, relocated to Oregon in order to receive drugs to end her life under the state's Death with Dignity Act.
In an obituary on Facebook, she bid farewell to her loved ones and kept the tone upbeat.
"Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me ... but would have taken so much more," she wrote, according to People. "The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my bed as I type ... Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!"
Maynard was told she had six months to live after she was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma last spring. To end her life, she was prescribed a deadly dose of barbiturates that she would take when her suffering became too overwhelming.
She said in previous interviews that the disease was going to kill her anyway, but in a much worse way than doing it herself. Choosing to go with dignity was much less frightening.
Maynard spent her last few months of life traveling to British Colombia, Alaska and Yellowstone National Park with her husband, friends and family. She had her family took a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon, a place on her bucket list to see.
The next morning, she suffered what she described as her worst seizure yet, reminding her that her disease was progressing.
She left behind Christmas gifts for her family to open after her death, and asked her mother and husband to work to get death with dignity laws passed in all 50 states.
"She made it clear she wants me to live a good life," her mother, Debbie Ziegler, said.
