Whitny Braun

Braun divides her time between Southern California, Peru and the Sierra Nevadas near Yosemite National Park where she keeps her collection of vintage Airstream travel trailers. In 2021 she enrolled at Syracuse University in the College of Law to earn her JD.

In 2020, Braun hosted and served as executive producer of Undiscovered: The Lost Lincoln, a documentary special that aired on Discovery. In 2021 Braun served as the supervising producer and lead researcher of "The Murders at Starved Rock" a documentary series exploring the 1960 triple homicide of three suburban women in Starved Rock State Park.

In August 2015, the Rajasthan High Court stated that the practice is not an essential tenet of Jainism and banned the practice making it punishable under section 306 and 309 (Abetment of Suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.

On August 31, 2015, advocates Dhawal Jiwan Mehta and Krishna Balaji Moorthy of the law firm of Wadia Ghandy in Mumbai argued a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court of India to have the August 10th, 2015 ruling of the High Court of Rajasthan against Sallekhana overturned. The appeal featured excerpts from Braun's dissertation arguing the philosophical and legal nature of the act of Sallekhana. The Supreme Court overturned the ruling of the High Court of Rajasthan temporarily, allowing Jains to continue practicing Sallekhana, until the Supreme Court can fully engage the issue with regard to the constitutionality of the act. This process could take up to three to five years.

In 2006 human rights activist Nikhil Soni and his lawyer Madhav Mishra, filed a Public Interest Litigation with the Rajasthan High Court. The PIL claimed that Sallekhana should be considered to be suicide under the Indian legal statute. They argued that Article 21 of the Indian constitution only guarantees the right to life, but not to death.[34] The petition extends to those who facilitate individuals taking the vow with aiding and abetting an act of suicide. In response, the Jain community argued that it is a violation of the Indian Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom.[35] It was argued that Sallekhana serves as a means of coercing widows and elderly relatives into taking their own lives. After being in India for the initial legal battle over Sallekhana in 2006 Braun presented the first academic paper on Sallekhana before the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics Conference in Eilat, Israel in 2007.

This landmark case sparked debate in India, where national bioethical guidelines have been in place since 1980. But it also raised the question of Sallekhana in the United States. Braun documented the final days of a woman who took Sallekhana in Texas in 2013 named Dr. Bhagwati Gada.