Episode 013: Death with Dignity and the Imago Dei

Updated:

Nov 11, 2022

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Published:

Jun 16, 2016

Brittany Maynard, at the age of twenty-nine, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Unable to receive lethal prescriptions in her home state of California, she moved to Oregon for her final days because it is one of a few states that currently allow physician assisted suicide (PAS).¹ She shared her story via a recording advocating for the organization Compassion and Choices and an expansion of laws permitting PAS. It is hard to imagine anyone not being moved by her desire to avoid suffering and die peacefully in the presence of her loved ones. Lawmakers in almost half the states prepared to pursue PAS laws in the wake of this emotional outpouring for Maynard and people like her, and Governor Jerry Brown signed California’s PAS bill into law on September 11, 2015. She ingested her lethal prescription on November 1, 2014, in the presence of her family, and, consistent with Oregon law, her official cause of death is listed as a brain tumor.

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with Journal author Jay Watts about his volume 38, number 06 (2015) article “Death with Dignity and the Imago Dei“.

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