Brittany Maynard was a 29-year-old who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and decided to take her life legally on Saturday. Her situation has raised questions about how faith fits into this situation, and John Brown University professors share their thoughts on this topic.
Maynard was diagnosed with cancer last spring and made headlines when she announced that she was planning on taking her own life. This decision made her begin a campaign to extend the rules of death with dignity.
When Maynard decided to take her own life, she moved to Ore. to be able to take part of the Death with Dignity act.
Jason Lanker, a biblical studies professor shares his thoughts on the loss of Maynard.
“God created life and promises to perfect it through suffering,” Lanker said, “When we actively seek to avoid suffering, we can actually miss the God who came to meet us in our suffering and give us His perfect life.”
This is the consensus of most Christians.
At the time, Kara Tippetts had a similar situation but took a different approach as the solution. When she was diagnosed with stage four cancer, she found peace through God instead of giving up on life.
Tippetts has since written a book about her situation and how she found hope in the darkest times. Tippetts’ book started out as a blog that she ran to give others hope during the darkest times. This blog and book has led to encouragement for many people.
Freshman Clare Warrington gave her views on the subject.
“Our response as Christians shouldn’t be condemnation but rather recognizing the tragedy there, and not shying away for taking a stance. But also respecting the brokenness there and the sorrow she felt and the pain that she was in and letting that break our hearts and the way that it breaks God’s heart. We also need to have compassion for those people in the same situation and praying that God will heal the brokenness in our nation,” Warrington said.
People have different opinions on the Maynard situation and there will continue to be controversy surrounding her death.