This little book is a supplement, or an 'add-on' to the main volume "Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying". It does not replace what has become the standard textbook on euthanasia, just brings it up to date politically, legally, and ethically.
Of considerable interest to readers will be the explicit chapter on how to take one's life with HELIUM GAS if suffering unbearbly at the end of life. This is a new development, and made important by the clamp-down by all Western governments on the prescribing of barbiturates by doctors.
DEREK HUMPHRY is a journalist and author of 14 books over the last 40 years. The last 7 have been on the euthanasia/right-to-die issue.
Best known is 'Final Exit' which has been translated into 12 major languages, was a NY Times bestseller in l991, and in the updated l997 edition (Dell paperback) sells consistent numbers every year, serving a need of the terminally ill who want to know their 'escape routes' if pain and indignity grows intolerable.
Humphry was a staff writer for the London Daily Mail, the London Sunday Times, and the Los Angeles Times, before founding, in l980, the Hemlock Society, which he built into a national organization.
He is currently president of the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organzation (ERGO) and edits the newsletter of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies.
Derek Humphry was born in Bath, England, 04.29.1930 and brought up in a broken family. Despite a poor education, further damaged by six years of war, Derek determined to become a writer. Starting as a newspaper messenger boy on the Yorkshire Post at 15, he worked his way up as a reporter on the Bristol Evening World, the Manchester Evening News to the London Daily Mail, the London Sunday Times and finally the Los Angeles Times.
Always an advocacy journalist, Derek wrote books on race relations, police corruption and a biography of Michael X. For 'Because They're Black' he won the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize.
When the wife to whom he had been married for 22 years developed inoperable cancer, he nursed her for two years until she asked him to help her die. Close to the end, Jean chose to end her life with lethal drugs to avoid further suffering. In time, he married again and moved to America.
Derek published in l978 a little book Jean's Way describing Jean's final years and his part in helping her to die peacefully. It became a bestseller and was translated into major languages.
The public response to the book caused him to start the Hemlock Society USA in 1980 from his garage in Santa Monica. Hemlock's purpose was to help people in similar situations as Jean's and also to reform the laws to permit physician-assisted suicide.
Derek built Hemlock into a national organization, with 40,000 members and 80 chapters. In l991 he wrote 'Final Exit' - a 'how-to' book for the dying to bring their suffering to an end if they chose. To much surprise, it became a #1 bestseller within six months. It was translated into 12 languages. Random House keeps the 3rd edition of 'Final Exit' in print in 2010, and it is still in print in Spanish and Italian. USA TODAY in 2007 chose it as one of the most significant books of the past 25 years.
His latest book is a memoir --'Good Life, Good Death' -- covering 79 years of an eventful life -- ranging from an unusual childhood in a broken home, a father in prison, a mother who ran away to Australia, then experiencing an ugly war which started when he was nine. The book relates his remarkable experiences in journalism, outstanding interviews with famous people, and his struggle against racism. Derek immigrated to the USA at age 48.
The second half of the memoir deals with his impact on the right to die movement in America, starting and building the Hemlock Society for 12 years, and pioneering the Oregon Death With Dignity Act (l994), the first such physician-assisted suicide law in North America.
Proud to be a paperback writer, Derek has published 15 books in 40 years. Only two have been hardbacks.
Derek is president of the Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization (ERGO), chairman of the advisory board of the Final Exit Network (successor to the now defunct Hemlock Society), and an advisor to the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, of which he has been president.
Although unlettered himself, Derek has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, USC, UCLA, University of Michigan, University of Chicago, and others.
In his book "A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America,' Ian Dowbiggin writes: "Humphry ranks as one of the preeminent pioneers of the American euthanasia movement." (OUP. 2003. Page 149). In their book 'Dying Right', the authors Daniel Hillyard and John Dombrink write: "Derek Humphry is widely acknowledged to be the initiatior of the euthanasia reform movement in the United States." (Routledge NY 2001. Page 82.)
A citizen of the USA and UK, he lived in Los Angeles l978-88 and since then in western Oregon. He has been married to Gretchen (nee Crocker) since l991. [Update: 22 March 2010]
38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 starsFinal Exit Supplement: Crucial information, October 26, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Supplement to Final Exit (Paperback)
This book is crucial to the terminally ill whose suffering has stolen their capacity to experience joy and whose pain could continue for months or years without this brave author's writings. The book is wise and practical. Never judge another until you have walked in their shoes. Innocent victims of agonizing, terminal illnesses deserve this information. They deserve peace.
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5.0 out of 5 starsHas excellent section on Helium, December 2, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Supplement to Final Exit (Paperback)
As one of the people who developed the practical use of Helium for the purpose of final exit, I wholeheartedly recommend this book. You can get it as a part of the Two-book volume, "Let Me Die Before I Wake & Supplement to Final Exit".
For those who are terminally ill and seeking the means to a relatively dignified end to their suffering, without the support or help of a doctor, this supplement is for you. Follow the advice it gives VERY carefully, and if possible, have a loved one sit by to observe and give emotional support. It is not as simple a means as you might think. But if you follow Derek Humphry's procedure carefully, it is likely that it will be a straightforward, sure, relatively painless, and relatively quick exit from the suffering of terminal disease.
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This review is from: Supplement to Final Exit (Paperback)
"Supplement to Final Exit" is now out of print. BUT a newer version (2002) is available in the 'double-book" "Let Me Die Before I Wake & Supplement to Final Exit" By Derek Humphry...
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