Nov. 1 is just a normal day for most of us, but for 29-year-old terminal cancer patient Brittany Maynard, this day is the day she may possibly end her life.
Maynard’s story has brought with it much controversy, and many criticize her choice to take a prescription pill that will allow her to pass away peacefully and end her suffering.
The real story isn’t Maynard’s illness, though; it is the recognition that the death with dignity law is receiving. Maynard has partnered with the organization Compassion & Choices in an attempt to increase support for the law.
Death with dignity is a law that allows any terminally ill patient to get a prescription from a doctor that will allow them to pass away without pain. Currently, there are only five states that grant its citizens this choice.
Oregon is one of those five states, which is why Maynard and her family moved to Portland upon her diagnosis. California, where the family previously lived, does not support the death with dignity law. Maynard says she wants it to be her choice when she dies, and she does not want to die the way most people diagnosed with her form of cancer do: in pain and suffering.
"My [cancer] is going to kill me, and it's a terrible, terrible way to die. So to be able to die with my family with me, to have control of my own mind, which I would stand to lose - to go with dignity is less terrifying,” Maynard said in an interview with PEOPLE. “When I look into both options I have to die, I feel this is far more humane.”
According to CBS News, those who oppose Maynard’s choice and the death with dignity law are putting a negative spin on her story, saying she has created a deadline for herself by choosing Nov. 1 as her day of death. Maynard says this is not the case, and she says if she is having a good day, health wise, on Nov. 1, then she will hold-off.
“I may be alive on Nov. 2, or I may not,” says Maynard. “And that’s my choice.”