Five Years after Brittany Maynard ’s Death, Her Advocacy for Medical Aid in Dying Lives On

To mark the 5th anniversary of its historic partnership with terminally ill Californian Brittany Maynard, Compassion & Choices has produced a new video about the legislative success she inspired to advance medical aid-in-dying laws and enlist diverse new advocates.  The new video includes soundbites from Brittany (recorded before her death), her husband Dan Diaz, Compassion & Choices CEO Kim Callinan, and Compassion & Choices volunteer advocates across the demographic spectrum of ethnicity, faith, mobile ability, physicians and sexual orientation. The partnership launched on Oct. 6, 2014, with a YouTube video that more than 12 million people have watched. The video describes why Brittany and her family had to move to Oregon, so she could utilize its medical aid-in-dying law to peacefully end her suffering from terminal brain cancer because California did not have a similar law. The campaign generated global digital-media attention, drawing more than six million unique viewers from nearly 240 countries to Compassion & Choices website. A YouGov poll three weeks later the campaign launch in late October 2014 showed 38 percent of American adults – 93 million people – had heard her story and knew that she advocated for medical aid in dying.  “Brittany and I then had that conversation, essentially asking, ‘Is this something that you can do?’ And once we got to that point, then I told her that I would do whatever I possibly cou...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs