LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A mother who battled pancreatic cancer and publicly supported Nevada’s “end-of-life pill” at the Legislature this year has died.
Lynda Brooks-Bracey, 57, died on June 23.
Her death came 18 days after Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed the medical-aid-in-dying bill — Senate Bill 239 (SB239). Brooks-Bracey testified in support of the bill and supported it in her last public interview on June 2 with NewsNation affiliate KLAS in Las Vegas.
“I happen to be a Christian, have a great belief in God and my faith. I don’t believe — for me, in my faith — that God asks me for excessive suffering. That’s not the God that I know,” Brooks-Bracey said.
She is survived by her husband, Jeff Bracey, and the couple’s four adult children. She was born on Christmas Day, 1965, in Flemington, New Jersey.
She told 8 News Now she believes most terminally ill patients are trying to survive as long as they can and SB239 would only serve as the last option.
When she heard the news that Lombardo had vetoed the bill, she told the non-profit organization Compassion & Choices in a text message: “He has made a huge mistake on so many levels.” It was her last text to the organization. “My heart is crushing … but we did all we could do.” She urged the group to continue fighting for choices for terminally ill people.
In her interview with 8 News Now, she wanted Lombardo to see the impact of a terminal illness on families.
“He’s invited to my home to see what my family and other families in Nevada have to go through the last weeks of their lives,” she said.
Sara Mann, Nevada campaign director for Compassion & Choices Action Network, said, “Gov. Lombardo failed Lynda Brooks-Bracey and the 82% of Nevadans who supported this compassionate bill. In Lynda’s memory, we will not rest until we enact a medical-in-dying law in Nevada.” Compassion & Choices said Lombardo was the first governor to veto a medical-aid-in-dying bill.
Lombardo, in a statement released when he rejected SB239, said, “Fortunately, expansions in palliative care services and continued improvement in advanced pain management make the end-of-life provisions in SB239 unnecessary.”
He continued, “Given recent progress in science and medicine and the fact that only a small number of states and jurisdictions allow for similar end-of-life protocols, I am not comfortable supporting this bill.”
SB239, sponsored by nine Democrats and co-sponsored by 10 more, would have allowed terminally ill Nevadans to self-administer medication to end their own lives. The bill contained a number of steps to ensure the decision was not influenced by others, as well as legal protections for medical personnel involved in the process.
Votes on SB239 were closer than votes on any other bill as it passed through the Legislature. Several of the approvals came by only a single vote.
The patient’s death certificate would state the cause of death as the terminal condition, the bill specifies. The death would not be considered “mercy killing, euthanasia, assisted suicide, suicide or homicide when done in accordance with the provisions of this bill.”
