British-born journalist Derek Humphrey, whose experience helping his terminally ill wife end her life led him to become a crusading pioneer in the right-to-die movement and publish the best-selling guide to suicide “Final Exit,” died Jan. 2 in Eugene, Ore. . He was 94.
His death, at a hospital facility, was announced by his family.
With a populist flair and a penchant for talking truthfully about death, Mr. Humphrey almost single-handedly steered a national conversation about physician-assisted suicide, at a time when the idea was little more than a paid theory to be batted around by medical ethicists. .
“He’s the one who put this cause on the map in America,” says Ian Dowbiggin, a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island and author. “A Brief History of Euthanasia: Life, Death, God and Treatment” (2005). “A big thank you to people who support the idea of doctor assisted suicide.”
In 1975, Mr Humphrey was working as a reporter for The Sunday Times in London when his wife of 22 years, Jean Humphrey, was in the final stages of terminal bone cancer. He asked her to help him die, hoping to avoid prolonged suffering.
Mr. Humphrey procured a lethal dose of painkillers from a sympathetic doctor and mixed them with coffee in his favorite mug.
“I took the mug to him and told him to drink it if he died instantly,” Mr Humphrey told Scotland’s Daily Record. “Then I hugged her, kissed her and we said our goodbyes.”
Mr. Humphrey chronicles the emotional, taboo and legally heavy pursuit of his wife’s hastened death in “Jean’s Way” (1979). The book was a sensation, quoted in newspapers around the world. Readers sent letters to the editor discussing the suffering of their loved ones. Many wrote directly to Mr. Humphrey.
“I wish we had a solution like ours,” one woman wrote, describing her husband’s last eight weeks as “a horror.” “How much more beautiful, how much more ‘love’. We did what others forced us to do and experienced that dreaded ‘death’ by prolonging the medical world in every possible way.”
In their letters, some readers appealed for instructions to help their loved ones die. This prompted Mr. Humphrey, who had remarried by then and to work for the Los Angeles Times in California, to consider creating an organization to advocate for assisted suicide and end-of-life rights for the terminally ill.
His second wife Anne Wicket suggested Humphrey use Hemlock as the title, “arguing that most Americans associate the term with the death of Socrates, a man who discussed and planned his death,” Mr. Humphrey later “wrote in an updated version.” Gene’s way. “
In August 1980, they hired the Los Angeles Press Club to announce the founding of the Hemlock Society, which they held out of the garage of their Santa Monica home.
The company grew rapidly. In 1981, it issued “Let Me Die Before I Wake”, a guide to drugs and dosages to induce “peaceful self-dissolution”. The group also lobbied state legislatures to enact legislation legalizing assisted suicide. In 1990, the Hemlock Society moved to Eugene. By then it had more than 30,000 members, but the right-to-die conversation had yet to reach most of America’s dinner tables.
This changed dramatically in 1991 when Mr. Humphrey published, “The Final Exit: Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide.” The book was a 192-page step-by-step guide that explained the methods of suicide as well as provided tips such as Miss Etiquette for a graceful exit.
“If you are unfortunately forced to end your life in a hospital or motel,” he wrote, “please leave a note with the staff apologizing for the shock and inconvenience. I even heard of one person leaving a generous tip with the motel staff.”
The book quickly shot to No. 1 in the hardcover advice section of the New York Times best-seller list.
Bioethicist Dr. Arthur Kaplan Dr. said The Times in 1991. It is the loudest statement in protest of how medicine is dealing with terminal illness and dying.
Reactions to “The Final Exit” were generally divided along ideological lines. Conservatives blasted it.
“What can one say about this new ‘book’? In one word: wicked,” University of Chicago bioethicist Leon and Cass Writing in Commentary magazine, Mr Humphrey was called “The Lord High Executioner”. “I didn’t want to read it, I don’t want you to read it. It should never have been written, and it doesn’t deserve to be dignified with a review, let alone an article. “
But progressives embraced the book, even as public health experts expressed concern that the methods it developed could be used by depressed people who were not terminally ill.
New York Times “I read ‘The Final Exit’ out of curiosity, but I’ll keep it for another reason — because I can imagine, once nursing a cancer patient, when I might want to use it,” columnist Anna Quindlen. wroteadding, “And if that day comes, whose business is it really, but mine and those I love?”
Instead of worrying about the book’s content, Ms. Quindlen said, “we should be looking for ways to make sure our dignified death is available in places other than chain bookstores.”
Derek John Humphrey was born on April 29, 1930, in Bath, England. His father Royston Martin Humphrey was a traveling salesman. His mother Betain (Dugan) Humphrey was a fashion model before her marriage.
After leaving school at 15, Derek got a job as a newspaper messenger. The following year, the Bristol Evening World hired him as a reporter. He went on to report for the Manchester Evening News and Daily Mail before moving to London’s Sunday Times and then the Los Angeles Times.
Before turning to books about death, Mr. Humphrey wrote “Because They Are Krishna” (1971), an examination of racial discrimination by a black social worker named Gus John; and “Police Power and the Black Man” (1972), about racism and corruption at Scotland Yard.
Mr Humphrey was a polarizing figure even within the right-to-die movement.
In 1990, he and Mrs. Wicket Humphrey divorced and fought bitterly in the press. She called him a “fraud”, accusing him of leaving her because she had cancer. Mr Humphrey denied the allegations.
“It was a very shaky marriage,” she said said New York Times in 1990. “It’s very painful, as bad as Jean’s death. I lost my home; I stayed in a motel for three months. “
Mrs Wicket Humphrey killed herself in October 1991.
In a video recorded earlier in the day, she expressed confusion about the work they did together, including helping her parents end their lives at home.
“I walked away from that house thinking we were both murderers,” he said Said in the videowhich was reviewed by The Times.
Mr Humphrey went into “damage control” mode, he told The Times. He placed a half-page ad in the paper explaining his side of the story.
“Sadly, for most of her life Anne was plagued by emotional problems,” the ad said, adding that “suicide due to despair was never part of Hemlock’s credo.”
Reservations about Mrs. Wicket Humphrey’s death and the right-to-die movement created tension within the Hemlock Society. Mr. Humphrey stepped down as executive director in 1992 and started the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization.
The Hemlock Society eventually split into several new groups Final exit networkwhich Mr. Humphrey helped to start.
He married Gretchen Crocker in 1991. He is survived by three sons from his first marriage; three grandchildren; and a great grandson.
Lori Brown, a Final Exit Network “exit guide” who helps terminally-ill patients plan their deaths, said in an interview that her clients sometimes credit Mr. Humphrey and “Final Exit” with giving them the courage to end their lives.
“It was the Hemlock Society and the book ‘Final Exit’ that really crossed the line into the living room of the average American as a discussion topic,” Ms. Brown said. “You can talk about it at the Thanksgiving dinner table.”
If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline SpeakingSuicide. Com/resources For a list of additional resources.
