Brittany Maynard is planning on making November 1, 2014 her last day on Earth, and a terminally ill cancer patient named Kara Tippetts is publicly begging her to reconsider going for assisted suicide, claiming, “You have been told a lie. A horrible lie, that your dying will not be beautiful. That the suffering will be too great.”
In a related report by The Inquisitr , Brittany Maynard was only given six months to live due to a malignant brain tumor that can’t be treated. Instead of suffering from the pains associated with cancer, Maynard moved to Oregon, where euthanasia laws allow physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to terminal patients. Before dying, Maynard also plans to spend her time lobbying governments to give easier access to euthanasia.
While many media outlets have described Maynard as “brave” for choosing to end her own life, but The Blaze columnist Matt Walsh believes there is nothing brave about assisted suicide .
“Other supposedly unbiased publications have taken to substituting the word ‘euthanasia’ with the phrase ‘dying with dignity,’ which is what you might call doctor assisted suicide if you’re advocating for the practice, rather than reporting on it. Across national media and social media, I’ve been sickened to see that suicide is now most commonly described with words like ‘dignity,’ ‘bravery,’ ‘courage,’ and ‘strength.’ Popular refrains apparently only ever used to justify some form of murder and destruction have been trotted out once again: ‘it’s her body,’ ‘it’s her choice,’ ‘it’s her life.’”
Kara Tippes is a mother of four and the author of the new book The Hardest Peace . She’s suffering from terminal breast cancer, and does not have much time left to live. Instead of writing about the political controversy, Tippetts decided to address Brittany Maynard directly in a blog written for the website A Holy Experience .
While Tippetts thanks Maynard for sharing her story and shedding light on what is happening in Oregon, she also laid down why she disagrees with assisted suicide.
“Suffering is not the absence of goodness, it is not the absence of beauty, but perhaps it can be the place where true beauty can be known,” Tippetts wrote. “In your choosing your own death, you are robbing those that love you with the such tenderness, the opportunity of meeting you in your last moments and extending you love in your last breaths.”
Tippetts believes that doctors who support Oregon’s euthanasia laws have “walked away from the hippocratic oath that says, ‘first, do no harm.’ He or she has walked away from the oath that has protected life and the beautiful dying we are granted. The doctors agreeing to such medicine are walking away from the beautiful protection of the hippocratic oath.”
The controversy over euthanasia is likely to produce a lot of controversy, and Tippetts acknowledges this problem, asking Maynard to forgive any Christians who may be “screaming at you from a heart that isn’t loving.” Tippetts also believes that a belief in eternity is the most important question that must be answered in the time remaining.
“More importantly, will you hear from my heart that Jesus loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He died an awful death upon a cross so that you would know Him today that we would no longer live separate from Him and in our death. He died and His death happened, it is not simply a story,” Tippetts said. “He died and He overcame death three days later, and in that overcoming of death He overcame the death you and I are facing in our cancer. He longs to know you, to shepherd you in your dying, and to give you life and give you life abundant- eternal life.”
In the end, Kara Tippetts promises to fly to wherever Brittany Maynard may be in order to meet in person. She believes that “it’s going to be a beautiful and painful journey for us all,” and “beauty will meet us in that last breath.”