What’s the Big Deal About Assisted Suicide? January 25, 2021 It seems like an easy and empowering solution to end-of-life suffering, but the moral and practical implications of assisted suicide are more than meets the eye. Marine veteran J.J. Hanson and his wife, Kristen, were new parents when they learned that J.J. had a rare form of stage 4 brain cancer. Doctors gave him four months to live. Around the same time, newlywed Brittany Maynard was making headlines as she faced the same form of cancer. Her home state of California did not allow assisted suicide, so Maynard and her husband moved to Oregon, where they found a doctor who could and would prescribe drugs to end her life.