Brittany

Type that name – just that name – into your Google search criterion window at 6:57am Pacific Daylight Time on 30 October 2014, and the first three items that come up are articles by NBC News, USA Today and CNN.com about the young woman who has famously decided to take control of her own passing. The media’s approach to this story has been breathless, panting almost. Like a dog watching you grill a thick steak. Except that the dog’s attentions aren’t inappropriate.

But this isn’t a rant about irresponsible sensationalism in news reportage. Another time, perhaps. This one is about choice.

When Oregon passed its assisted suicide law, many opponents predicted a mass exodus of the depressed to Oregon, visualized (figurative) blood running in the streets. It hasn’t happened. In 2013, according to the information I found on Oregon’s own public health site, 71 people died in that state by legally assisted suicide. With the population of Oregon at about 3.9 million, that’s one assisted suicide for every 55,000 inhabitants. It’s one for every 478 of the 33,931 Oregonians or visitors who died from all causes that year. Since the law was passed in 1997, 1,173 prescriptions have been written and 752 people used those prescriptions to make their exits.

Not exactly an epidemic, I shouldn’t think. In Oregon in 2013, more folks died by homicide (90), unintended injury (1,739), other methods of suicide (626, after subtracting our 71). Most people (33,931) died of natural causes.

I could go on and on dissecting the cack stats for the State of Oregon but you get the picture. Currently, three states allow physicians to assist folks in arranging a relatively non-violent way to end their own lives – Oregon, Washington and Vermont. And opponents, mostly religious groups, are intent on preventing any more states enacting similar laws.

I wonder how many of those opponents can still feel comfortable manning the barricades after they watch Brittany describe her life, her decision and her process of dying. Because make no mistake, the girl is dying.  This is not about whether she dies but rather, about when and how. And for Brittany, how is the controlling consideration.

It amazes me that in a nation in which supposedly eminent ethicists can argue in favor of euthanizing non-perfect babies (Singer at Cornell, et al), we cannot respect and honor – even if we personally can’t embrace – the decision by an intelligent, life-loving young woman to choose a deliberate and gentle end, shared with her most special loved ones.

Message to the debaters: This is not about your religion or your fear of slippery slopes, it’s not about Kevorkian or your favorite TV pastor or any of the others who gain notoriety through the debate. This is about a young person who has chosen dignity at the end but also has chosen to give up some measure of that dignity and a whole lot of her privacy in order to show the rest of us that the horror is in her disease, not in her choice to leave us with love.

I truly wish her disease would somehow go away and that she would live a long and fruitful life. But failing that outcome, I wish we would just respect her decision and when the time comes, leave her family and friends alone.