Final Exit

Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying is a controversial 1992 book by Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society in California and past president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies. A newspaper journalist and author who helped his wife, Jean, end her life with an intentional overdose of medication after a long and painful decline from terminal cancer, Humphry wrote the book as a how-to guide for terminally ill people who wish to end their lives. The controversy arose not only from the intense debate over whether one should have a right to end one's own life, and whether anyone, especially medical professionals, can ethically assist self-chosen euthanasia, but also because...