Brittany Maynard
Activist
Remembered for her advocacy of the widespread legalization of assisted suicide, this terminal brain cancer patient publicly announced her decision to take her own life and, surrounded by her family members, carried out the act just two weeks before what would have been her thirtieth birthday.
In January of 2014, she was diagnosed with Astrocytoma, a rare form of brain cancer. In April of that year, doctors announced that she likely had only six months left to live.
After her diagnosis, she relocated from her native California to Oregon in order to fall under the jurisdiction of the latter state's Death with Dignity Law. While living in Oregon, she helped create an assisted suicide advocacy group known as the Brittany Maynard Fund.
She grew up in Anaheim, California as the daughter of Deborah Ziegler and the stepdaughter of Gary Holmes. For the last two years of her life, she was married to Daniel Esteban Diaz.
She and Motown singer Tammi Terrell were both diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.