Terminally Ill Woman Chooses Death Date
CUOMO: This is a story you're really going to want to think about as much as just learn about. Twenty-nine-year-old Brittany Maynard has a set death in front of her and she wants to control it herself. Now here's her story. Five months ago, Brittany was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. And given the promise of just months to live, followed by the process of a horrible death. Well now in an online video, Brittany says it's not going down that way.</s>BRITTANY MAYNARD, DIAGNOSED WITH TERMINAL BRAIN CANCER: I will die upstairs in my bedroom that I share with my husband, with my mother and my husband by my side. I can't even tell you the amount of relief that it provides me to know that I don't have to die the way that it's been described to me that my brain tumor would take me on its own.</s>CUOMO: This is one of those stories that really combines what is so impossible to accept with figuring out what is possible in terms of what you can do about it. Brittany and her husband have moved to Oregon. Now that's a state where death with dignity laws are in place, allowing Brittany to end her life when she wants with specially prescribed medication. This is sparking a debate across the nation. Let's bring in someone who really understands the debate, Arthur Caplan. He's the head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center. Professor, thank you for joining us.</s>ARTHUR L. CAPLAN, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF MEDICAL ETHICS, NYU LANGONE MED. CTR.: Thanks for having me.</s>CUOMO: This is the combination of can you and should you. Let's start with the can you. What is the law here? What does it provide?</s>CAPLAN: So, 14 years ago, Oregon became the first state to permit assistance in dying. It says, if you're terminally ill, certified by two doctors, if you make a request and you're not psychologically or psychiatrically depressed, you have to make the request three times over a period of time, they will give you a lethal dose of barbiturates basically, and you must take the pills. The doctor doesn't administer them. So you have to reach out and say, I'm going to take these now. It's been in place, as I said, for more than a decade. Washington state has followed. Vermont just created the same policy. Two states, New Mexico and Montana, have court opinions that look like they're going to allow this.</s>CAMEROTA: So if she were in one of these other 47 states that does not allow it yet, what would happen? What would the punishment be?</s>CAPLAN: If she had a large dose of barbiturates and killed herself, she'd probably void her insurance policy. She'd have fiscal penalties. If the husband stepped over and said, I'm going to give you these with a glass of water, he could be prosecuted in many states for assisting a suicide.</s>MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: So here's - here's the thing now. We talk about ethics, right, and compassionate care and -</s>CAPLAN: And we need to talk about ethics.</s>PEREIRA: And we want to talk - but we do and we want to talk about that because I think so many people are struggling with this. You have concerns about it. Talk to me about your concerns.</s>CAPLAN: So I think the concerns about legalization here, which I will come out and say I do favor, but there are concerns. One is, are you going to go down a slippery slope. This is restricted to terminally ill people, like her. She's got a terrible brain -</s>CUOMO: Who says that you're terminally ill? You say two doctors. But what means terminally ill and -</s>CAPLAN: Is it an allergist and a dermatologist, so it hasn't been tight that way? People are going to press and say, you know what, what if I have Alzheimer's? What if I have some sort of ALS. I'm not terminally ill immediately, but I don't want to live this way. In Europe, we've seen some slide toward allowing people to die who just say I'm horribly depressed. Belgium, the Netherlands have done that. So slippery slope issues are there. You've got to worry about those. The other is, with a woman, you know, my heart goes out to her, but when you announce I'm going to kill myself on day x and bring the family in and we're all going to say good-bye, there's a little bit of pressure there. It's sort of like, you've got to perform what you said you were going to do.</s>PEREIRA: Especially going on camera saying, you know, right in,</s>CAPLAN: Yes. Yes. So you don't want to coerce yourself. I mean this assisted suicide is for people who say, you know, I feel horrible, I can't go on, it's too much for me.</s>PEREIRA: Right. Right.</s>CAPLAN: Now we're going to do it, not I'm going to do it on date x.</s>CUOMO: But there's help - there's help for people who have depression.</s>CAPLAN: So -</s>CUOMO: Is there any help for her?</s>CAPLAN: You know, there is a little bit of help and we don't want to forget it. We've seen the rise of hospice,</s>CAMEROTA: And, of course, we all know stories in our own lives and then anecdotally something that was supposedly a death sentence, and there was a miracle.</s>PEREIRA: Yes, there was a miracle. Right. Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: And somebody recovered.</s>CAPLAN: Well, I didn't want to say - I didn't want to say it happens a lot. The difference here is, she's 29, she's got this brain tumor, there's some chance. When you get to somebody who's 89 and they have four strokes and three heart attacks and a cancer, there you're a little more certain about where you're headed.</s>PEREIRA: Well, they downgraded her outlook. They had originally given her years to live and then it turned into mere months.</s>CAPLAN: They did. I think somebody probably got a peek at her tumor using this new DNA analysis we can do and said, oh, this is a bad one. But nonetheless, you don't want people pulling the rip cord to go unless they really feel like there's no other option. By the way, interesting fact about Oregon, only 30 -- about 30 percent of the people who ask for the pills never take them because they like the ability to say, I'm in control, but then they want to go on.</s>CAMEROTA: Interesting. It's empowering somehow.</s>CAPLAN: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.</s>PEREIRA: Absolutely.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes. Art Caplan, thanks so much.</s>CAPLAN: Thank you.</s>CAMEROTA: All right, we are going to shift gears. Have you ever wanted to know what it may be like to squeeze into a wet suit and dangle 30 feet from a theater ceiling in Las Vegas? Yes you have? I hope so. Because Mike Rowe has. He's done it. He's here to tell us all about it and preview his new show on</s>CNN. ROWE: Yes, I will - I will do that.