Brittany Maynard, the brain-cancer patient about whom I've written before, was as good as her word, taking her own life at the beginning of November. I disagree with her refusal to call her exit a suicide, but the important point is that she went on her own terms, refusing to let the disease get the best of her. My heart goes out to her parents, her husband, her relatives, and her friends, all of whom had to endure not only Brittany's disease and death, but also the sharp, nasty edges of media exposure. Brittany chose to make her fight for a "death with dignity" a public one, which couldn't have been easy for her or for her friends and loved ones. She made some of those close to her promise to continue the fight to spread Oregon-style death-with-dignity laws throughout the nation, so in her absence the struggle will go on.
RIP, Mrs. Maynard.
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It's too bad that she didn't try and pull a Heinlein (see 21:00) instead, but it seems that even the Grand Master himself couldn't subject himself to the cold sleep even when Alcor offered him a free cryonic suspension chamber to sleep into the future in and theoretically be revived out of with the help of future science and medicine.
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