--- title: Brittany Maynard: Understanding Right to Die Laws description: Brittany Maynard was one of hundreds of people in five states who've taken advantage of death with dignity laws canonical: https://time.com/3551560/brittany-maynard-right-to-die-laws/ author: Emily Barone article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-03T13:52:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:42:47.483Z og:title: Brittany Maynard: Understanding Right to Die Laws og:description: Brittany Maynard was one of hundreds of people in five states who've taken advantage of death with dignity laws og:url: https://time.com/3551560/brittany-maynard-right-to-die-laws/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c0bada69722dc56/698763cacd1bbac1466f2f2d/dwd-facebook.png?branch=production&width=321&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 321 og:image:height: 181 og:image:alt: dwd.facebook og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Brittany Maynard: Understanding Right to Die Laws twitter:description: Brittany Maynard was one of hundreds of people in five states who've taken advantage of death with dignity laws twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c0bada69722dc56/698763cacd1bbac1466f2f2d/dwd-facebook.png?branch=production&width=321&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See Which States Allow Assisted Suicide > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Twice a week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Emily Barone](https://time.com/author/emily-barone/) ## Emily Barone Nov 3, 2014 1:52 PM UTC by [Emily Barone](https://time.com/author/emily-barone/) ## Emily Barone Nov 3, 2014 1:52 PM UTC Few issues are more personal—or divisive—than ending a life with a doctor’s lethal prescription. The issue has sparked national debate recently, after Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman who had terminal brain cancer, went public with her decision to end her own life. [She did so on Saturday in Oregon](http://time.com/3551089/brittany-maynard-death-with-dignity/). Maynard is one of more than 750 people in Oregon who have ingested a lethal dose of prescription medication since the Death with Dignity Act went into effect in 1997\. While Oregon has had increased participation over the last 16 years and has spurred similar legislation in other states, aid-in-dying laws remain a lightning rod of contention and deliberation. Advocates say competent patients should have a right to choose how they die if they are already in the process of dying from a terminal illness. Opponents counter that such a precedent is ripe for abuse. The battle has been shaped over many years. In the 1990s, Jack Kevorkian assisted in the deaths of more than a hundred terminally ill people to much public outcry. In 2009, politicians sparred over a provision in the Affordable Care Act concerning end-of-life consultations – called “death panels” by critics – to help control health-care costs. (Roughly 28%, or $170 billion, of Medicare is spent on patients’ last six months of life, according to Medicare Newsgroup.) Here is how aid-in-dying laws look today, and a snapshot of the ways in which they are implemented:  ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3551560/brittany-maynard-right-to-die-laws/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3551560/brittany-maynard-right-to-die-laws/"},"headline":"See Which States Allow Assisted Suicide","datePublished":"2014-11-03T13:52:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:42:47.483Z","description":"Brittany Maynard was one of hundreds of people in five states who've taken advantage of death with dignity laws","url":"https://time.com/3551560/brittany-maynard-right-to-die-laws/","keywords":["Living","Death","oregon","Culture","Brittany Maynard"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c0bada69722dc56/698763cacd1bbac1466f2f2d/dwd-facebook.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Emily Barone","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/emily-barone/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c0bada69722dc56/698763cacd1bbac1466f2f2d/dwd-facebook.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"dwd.facebook","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3551560/brittany-maynard-right-to-die-laws/","name":"See Which States Allow Assisted Suicide"}}]}] ```