Derek Humphrey, a British-born journalist whose experience helped his wife eventually end her life, become a leading crusader in the Right to Progress movement and publish “The Final Exit,” a best-selling guide to suicide, died Jan. 2 in Eugene, Ore. He was 94.
He was pronounced dead, at a palliative facility, by his family.
With a popular penchant for and talent for talking death talk about death, Mr. Humphrey sparked an almost national conversation about physician-assisted suicide in the early 1980s, a period when the idea was little more than an esoteric theory around which medical ethics revolved.
“He was the person who really put this issue on the map in America,” said Ian Dubiggin, a professor at Prince Edward State University and the author of the book “Peace Beginning.” “A Brief History of Euthanasia: Life, Death, God, and Medicine” (2005). “The people who support the suicide idea of the doctor who helped him owe him an absolute debt of gratitude.”
In 1975, Mr. Humphrey was working as a correspondent for The Sunday Times from London when Jean Humphrey, his wife of 22 years, was in the final stages of terminal bone cancer. Hoping to avoid long suffering, she asked him to help her die.
Mr Humphrey bought a lethal dose of painkillers from a sympathetic doctor and mixed them with the coffee in her favorite mug.
“I took her mug and told her if she drank she would die instantly,” Mr Humphrey told Scotland’s Daily Record newspaper. “Then I gave her a hug, kissed her and we said our goodbyes.”
Mr. Humphrey established the emotional, taboo and legal quest for his wife’s hasty death in “Gun’s Gun” (1979). The book, excerpted in newspapers around the world, was a sensation. 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 yours,” one woman wrote, describing her husband’s last eight weeks of life as “horror.” “How much more beautiful, how much more ‘love’. We did what others forced us to do and escaped the horrific ‘death’ that the medical world offers by prolonging life in every possible way.”
In their letters, some readers advocated for instructions to help their loved ones die. That prompted Mr. Humphrey, then married and working in California for the Los Angeles Times, to consider starting an organization to advocate for suicide and end-of-life rights.
Anne Wickett Humphrey, his second wife, suggested using hemlock as a title, “arguing that most Americans associate the word with the death of Socrates, a man whose death he discussed,” Mr. Humphrey later wrote in an updated edition of “The Way of Jean.” “
In August 1980, they hired the Los Angeles Press Club to announce the creation of the Hemlock Society, which they ran out of the garage of their Santa Monica home.
The organization grew rapidly. In 1981, she released Let Me Die Before I Wake, a guide to medications and doses for inducing “peaceful self-delay.” The group also lobbied state legislatures for laws to make assisted suicide legal. In 1990, the Hemlock Community moved to Eugene. By then, it had more than 30,000 members, but the right-to-right conversation had yet to reach most dinner tables in America.
That changed startlingly in 1991, after Mr. Humphrey published The Final Exit: Practical Aspects of Self-Influence and Suicide for Death. The book was a 192-page step-by-step guide that, in addition to explaining suicide methods, gave Miss Manners-like tips for getting out safely.
“If you are unfortunately bound to end your life in a hospital or motel,” he wrote, “it is great to leave a note apologizing for the trauma and inconvenience to the staff. I have also heard of an individual leaving a generous tip for the motel staff.”
The book quickly shot to No. 1 in the Hardcover Evide category on the New York Times best seller list.
“This is an indication of the magnitude of the euthanasia issue in our society now.” He said The Times in 1991. “It’s frightening and disturbing, and this kind of sales pitch is a shot across the bow. It’s the loudest statement of protest against how medicine deals with terminal illness and death.”
Reactions to Final Exit have generally been divided along ideological lines. Conservatives criticized this.
“What can one say about this new book? In one word: evil,” University of Chicago Bioethics Leon R. cup He wrote in Commentary magazine, calling Mr. Humphrey “Lord High Controversy.” “I didn’t want you to read it, I don’t want you to read it. It should never have been written, and it doesn’t deserve to be honored by a review, let alone an article.”
But progressives embraced the book, even as public health experts expressed concern that the methods it laid out could be used by depressed people who were not terminally ill.
“I read ‘Final Exit’ out of curiosity, but I will keep it for another reason — because I can imagine, having cared for a cancer patient, the day I might want to use it,” New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen said. booksAdding, “And if that day comes, who is this, truly, but my country and those I love?”
Instead of worrying about the book’s contents, Ms. Quindlen said, “We should be looking for ways to ensure that A Dignified Death is available in places other than a chain bookstore in the mall.”
Derek John Humphrey was born on April 29, 1930, in Bath, England. His father, Royston Martin Humphrey, was a traveling salesman. His mother, Bethine (Duggan) Humphrey, was a fashion model before marriage.
After leaving school at the age of 15, Derek got a job as a newspaper messenger. The following year, the Bristol Evening World hired him as a reporter. He continued to report for The Manchester Evening News and The Daily Mail before moving to The Sunday Times from London and then The Los Angeles Times.
Before turning to books about death, Mr. Humphrey wrote “Because They’re Black” (1971), an examination of racial discrimination written with Gus John, a black social worker; and “The Police Force and the Black People” (1972), about racism and corruption in Scotland Yard.
Mr. Humphrey was a polarizing figure even within the right-wing movement.
In 1990, he and Mrs. Wicket Humphrey divorced and fought bitterly in the media. She called him a “fraud”, accusing him of leaving her because she was diagnosed with cancer. Mr Humphrey denied the allegation.
“This was a very fragile marriage,” he said He said The New York Times in 1990. “This is very painful, as bad as Jean’s death. I have lost my home. I have lived in a hotel for three months.”
Mrs Wickett Humphrey killed herself in October 1991.
In a video recorded the day before, she expressed concerns 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 killers,” she said he said in the videowhich was reviewed by The Times.
He said Mr. Humphrey was in “damage control” mode. He placed a half-page ad in the paper explaining his side of the story.
“Unfortunately, Anne was distressed by emotional problems,” the ad said, adding that “suicide for reasons of depression was not part of the Hemlock Doctrine.”
The death of Mrs. Wickett Humphrey around the Right to Right movement caused stress in the hemlock community. Mr. Humphrey resigned as executive director in 1992 and started the euthanasia research and guidance organization.
The hemlock community eventually split into several new groups, including the Final exit networkwho helped Mr. Humphrey get started.
He married Gretchen Crocker in 1991. She survives him, along with three children from his first marriage; Three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Lori Brown, a Final Exit Network “Exit Guide” who helps terminally ill patients plan their deaths, said in an interview that her clients sometimes turn to Mr. Humphrey and Final Exit for giving them the courage to end their lives.
“It was the hemlock community and the book ‘Final Exodus’ that crossed the threshold of bringing this into ordinary Americans’ living rooms as a topic of discussion,” Ms. Brown said. “You can talk about it at the Thanksgiving dinner table.”
If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach or go to Suicide and Crisis Lifeline SpeakingofSuicide.com/resources For a list of additional resources.
