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Brittany Maynard’s Mom Defends Her Daughter After The Vatican Calls Her Decision to End Her Life “Reprehensible”

Debbie Ziegler and Brittany Maynard
Brittany Maynard's mother Debbie Ziegler spoke out against The Vatican's comments following her death.

On Nov. 1, cancer patient Brittany Maynard made the difficult decision to end her own life at the age of 29 after publicly advocating the Death With Dignity Act, which allows the terminally ill to end their lives early, on their own terms. Days after her death, Vatican official Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula condemned Maynard’s decision, calling it “reprehensible.”

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“Assisted suicide is an absurdity,” he said shortly after her passing. “Dignity is something different than putting an end to your own life.” 

Though Pope Francis did not mention Maynard by name, he also spoke out against the Death With Dignity Act over the weekend of Nov. 15, saying assisted suicide gives “a false sense of compassion.”

Pope Francis
Pope Francis spoke out against assisted suicide over the weekend of Nov. 15, saying it gives “a false sense of compassion.”

“This is playing with life,” the leader of the Catholic Church said. “Be careful because this is a sin against the Creator: Against God the Creator, who created things this way.”

In an emotional statement given to MSNBC’s The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell, Maynard’s mother Debbie Ziegler responded to The Vatican’s comments. 

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“To censure a personal choice as reprehensible because it does not comply with someone else’s belief is immoral,” Ziegler said. “My 29-year-old daughter’s choice to die gently rather than suffer physical and mental degradation and intense pain does not deserve to be labelled as reprehensible by strangers a continent away who do not know her or the particulars of her situation.” 

The grieving mother took strong offense to the Vatican’s comments at such a trying time in her family’s lives.

“Reprehensible is a word I’ve used as a teacher to describe the actions of Hitler, and other political tyrants and the exploitation of children by pedophiles,” she continued. “As Brittany Maynard’s mother, I find it difficult to believe that anyone who knew her would ever select this word to describe her actions. This word was used publicly at a time when my family was tender and freshly wounded. Grieving. Such a strong public criticism from people we do not know, have never met, is more than a slap in the face. It is like kicking us as we struggle to draw a breath.”

Ziegler also agreed with her daughter’s beliefs that to end one’s life at a time of extreme physical suffering has nothing to do with religion. 

“Death is not necessarily the enemy in all cases,” she said. “Sometimes a gentle passing is a gift. Brittany stood up to bullies. She never thought anyone else had the right to tell her how long she should suffer. The right to die for the terminally ill is a human rights issue, plain and simple.”

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Though Ziegler didn’t appear on the news show in person, Barbara Coombs Lee, the president of Compassion & Choices conferenced onto the show to talk about Maynard’s decision. 

“It really is not our place to impose our own personal belief system on people who have their own relationship to the divine mystery and their own way of relating to that as the time comes for them to die,” Lee said.

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