Right-To-Die Activist Derek Humphry Dies at 94

British-born journalist Derek Humphry’s experience of helping his terminally ill wife lead him to become a pioneering advocate in the dying’s rights movement and publish “Final Exit “, a best-selling manual on suicide. on Jan. 2 in Eugene, Ore. He was 94.

His family announced his death at a hospital.

With his people skills and ability to talk honestly about death, Mr. Humphry almost drove the national conversation on physician-assisted suicide in the early 1980s, at a time when it was emerging. the idea. Esoteric theories proposed by medical ethics.

“He really put this cause on the map in America,” said Ian Dowbiggin, a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island and author of “A Concise History of Euthanasia: Life, Death, God , and Medicine” (2005). “People who support the idea of ​​physician-assisted suicide really should thank him.”

In 1975, Mr Humphry was working as a reporter for The Sunday Times in London, when his wife of 22 years, Jean Humphry, was in the final stages of bone cancer. Hoping not to suffer for long, he asked her to help him die.

Mr. Humphry bought painkillers from a sympathetic doctor and mixed them with coffee in his favorite cup.

“I took the mug from him and told him if he drank it he would die instantly,” Mr Humphry told The Daily Record of Scotland. “So I hugged her, kissed her and we said goodbye.”

Mr. Humphry recounted in the book “La Jean’s Way” (1979) the emotional, taboo and legalistic search for his wife’s death. It was covered in the press all over the world, it was great. Readers sent letters to the editor discussing the suffering of their loved ones. Many wrote directly to Mr. Humphry.

“I wish we had a solution like yours,” wrote one woman, who described her husband’s last eight weeks as “terrible.” “Isn’t the more beautiful, the more the love.” We did what others forced us to do, and endured the horrible ‘death’ that the medical world provides by prolonging life by any means possible.”

In their letters, some readers asked for instructions to help their dying loved ones. That prompted Mr. Humphry, who remarried and worked in California for The Los Angeles Times, to think of creating an organization to advocate for assisted suicide and the right to die for the terminally ill. .

Ann Wickett Humphry, his second wife, suggested using the word Hemlock as the title of the association, “opposing that most Americans associate the word with the death of Socrates, a man who discussed and planned his death,” Mr. Humphry wrote in the updated edition of “Jean’s Way.”

In August 1980, the couple rented out the Los Angeles Press Club to announce the formation of the Hemlock Society, which ran out of the garage of their Santa Monica home.

The organization grew rapidly. In 1981, he published “Let Me Die Before I Wake Up,” a guide to drugs and dosages to “save yourself peacefully.” The group also lobbied state lawmakers to pass laws legalizing assisted suicide. In 1990, the Hemlock Society moved to Eugene. At the time, it had more than 30,000 members, but the right-to-die conversation had yet to reach most dinner tables in America.

That changed a lot in 1991, when Mr. Humphry published “Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying.” The book is a 192-page guide which, in addition to explaining how to commit suicide, gives advice like Miss Manners to leave with dignity.

“If you unfortunately have to end your life in a hospital or motel,” he wrote, “it’s nice to leave a note of apology for the shock and inconvenience to the staff. I also heard that someone gave good advice to the motel staff. “

“The Last Stand” quickly rose to number one in the hardcover advice category of The New York Times bestseller list.

“This is an indication of the extent of the problem of murder in our society today,” said Dr. Arthur Caplan, bioethicist, in The Times in 1991. . This is the most powerful statement of protest against the way medicine deals with disease and death. “

Commentary on “Final Exit” is often divided along ideological lines. The conservatives blew it.

“What can be said about this new ‘book’? In one word: evil,” Leon R. Kass, a bioethicist at the University of Chicago, wrote in Commentary magazine, calling Mr. Humphry “The Lord High Executive.” “I don’t want to read it, I don’t want you to read it. It should never have been written, and it doesn’t deserve the respect of a review, let alone an article.”

But the book has been embraced by progressives, even though public health experts have expressed concern that the method it lays out could be used by depressed people who are not seriously ill.

“I read ‘The Last Stand’ out of curiosity, but I will keep it for another reason – because I can imagine, having once nursed a cancer patient, the day I might want to use it,” the New York Times wrote Anna Quindlen , journalist. He added: “And if that day comes, whose will it really be, but mine and those I love?”

Unconcerned about the book’s content, Ms. Quindlen said, “We have to find a way to ensure that there is a dignified death somewhere other than the bookstore in the mall.”

Derek John Humphry was born on April 29, 1930 in Bath, England. His father, Royston Martin Humphry, was a traveling salesman. His mother, Bettine (Duggan) Humphry, was a fashion model before she married.

After leaving school at the age of 15, Derek got a job as a newspaper courier. The following year, The Bristol Evening World hired him as a reporter. He went on to report for The Manchester Evening News and The Daily Mail before moving to The Sunday Times in London and then The Los Angeles Times.

Before turning to books about death, Mr. Humphry wrote “Because They’re Black” (1971), a documentary about racial discrimination written with Gus John, a black social worker, and “Police Power and Black People” (1972), about racism and corruption at Scotland Yard.

Mr. Humphry was a prominent figure even within the right-to-die movement.

In 1990, he and Mrs. Wickett Humphry divorced and had a heated battle in the media. She called him a “fake” and accused him of leaving her because she had cancer. Mr Humphry denied the allegation.

She told The New York Times in 1990: “It was a very turbulent marriage. I lost my house; I lived in a motel for three months.”

Mrs Wickett Humphry committed suicide in October 1991.

In a video taken the day before, she expressed her concerns about their work together, including helping her parents end their lives at home.

“I left that house thinking we were both murderers,” he said in the video, which was reviewed by The Times.

Mr Humphry went into “damage control” mode, he told The Times. He placed a half-page ad in the newspaper explaining his side of the story.

“Unfortunately, for most of her life, Ann has suffered from emotional problems,” the ad said, adding that “suicide due to depression has never been part of her creed.” the Hemlock.”

The death of Mrs. Wickett Humphry and reservations about the rights of the dead movement caused a stir within the Hemlock Society. Mr. resigned as executive director. Humphry in 1992 and started the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Society.

The Hemlock Society has since split into several new groups, including the Final Exit Network, which Mr. Humphry helped start.

He married Gretchen Crocker in 1991. He survives, along with three sons from his first marriage; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

Lowrey Brown, a Final Exit Network “exit guide” who helps terminally ill patients plan for their death, said in an interview that his clients sometimes reassure Mr. Humphry and “Final Exit” for giving them the courage to end their lives.

“The Hemlock Society and the book ‘Final Exit’ really crossed the threshold of bringing it into the living room of the average American as a topic of conversation,” Ms. Brown said. “You can talk about it on ‘the dinner table at Thanksgiving.”

If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional sources.