The euthanasia debate: Here's a look at high-profile cases over the years
Police accused Ellen Gilland, 76, of shooting her terminally ill husband Jerry, 77, in an AdventHealth hospital in Daytona Beach last month, igniting a discussion about legal euthanasia.
Gilland, a New Smyrna Beach resident, has been held without bail at the Volusia County Branch Jail since Jan. 21.
Florida State Code 765.309 outlaws any act "construed to condone, authorize or approve mercy killing or euthanasia or to permit any affirmative or deliberate act or omission to end life other than to permit the natural process of dying."
In 10 other states — Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California, Colorado, Washington D.C., Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine and New Mexico — the law allows for some form of euthanasia for terminally ill patients.
While Gilland’s case has yet to play out, others with similar circumstances can provide some background. Here are a few well-known cases in the United States:
Gilland's attorney requests bail:Florida woman, 76, accused of killing ill husband in hospital, requests pretrial release
Ellen Gilland indictment:Woman, 76, accused of killing ill husband in Daytona hospital indicted on lesser charge
Previous coverage:NSB woman accused of killing terminally ill husband in hospital requests bail
Terri Schiavo – Florida
Terri Schiavo, of St. Petersburg, collapsed from cardiac arrest in 1990; she suffered brain damage as a result and remained in a vegetative state.
In 1998, her husband, Michael Schiavo, requested that doctors remove her feeding tube, arguing that Terri would not have wanted to live that way.
Her parents, on the other hand, were opposed to removing her feeding tube, and a legal and political battle, which even drew attention from then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, ensued for many years.
Terri Schiavo died on March 31, 2005, when doctors removed her feeding tube after Michael Schiavo prevailed in federal court.
Brittany Maynard – Oregon
Brittany Maynard, a California resident, moved to Oregon in 2014 so she could legally end her life after being diagnosed with stage 4 malignant brain cancer.
Maynard died Nov. 2 of that year at age 29 in Portland, Oregon.
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According to a statement from Compassion & Choices announcing Maynard’s death, she suffered "increasingly frequent and longer seizures, severe head and neck pain, and stroke-like symptoms” before deciding to take the “aid-in-dying” medication she had received in the months prior to her death.
Compassion & Choices is a Denver-based nonprofit organization “working to improve care, expand options and empower everyone to chart their end-of-life journey.”
In a goodbye message to friends and family on Facebook reported by People Magazine, Maynard wrote: "The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my bed as I type. … Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!"
Willem Jewett – Vermont
A former Vermont legislator and House majority leader, Willem Jewett died at age 58 on Jan. 12, 2022, in Ripton, Vermont, from euthanasia.
In the year before his death, Jewett was diagnosed with mucosal melanoma.
In 2013, he helped pass Vermont's Medical Aid in Dying Act (or Act 39), which allows terminally ill patients to end their own lives, according to the Associated Press.
United States Supreme Court cases
Other euthanasia and "right-to-die" cases have reached the United States Supreme Court over the years.
In the case Vacco v. Quill from 1997, three seriously ill patients and Dr. Timothy E. Quill challenged the constitutionality of New York's ban on physician-assisted suicide.
The court upheld the ban, stating it did not violate the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.
In the 2001 case Gonzales v. Oregon, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that physician-assisted suicide violated the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 and threatened to revoke medical licenses of physicians who participated in the practice.
After the state of Oregon disputed the claim, the Supreme Court decided that the CSA did not authorize the attorney general to declare a medical practice authorized under state law to be illegitimate.