Derek Humphry (29 April 1930 – 2 January 2025) was a British and American journalist and author. He was a proponent of legal

assisted suicide Assisted suicide, sometimes restricted to the context of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is the process by which a person, with the help of others, takes actions to end their life. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifie ...

and the

right to die The right to die is a concept rooted in the belief that individuals have the Self-ownership, autonomy to make fundamental decisions about their own lives, including the choice to Suicide, end them or undergo voluntary euthanasia, central to the b ...

. In 1980 he co-founded the

Hemlock Society The Hemlock Society (sometimes called Hemlock Society USA) was an American right-to-die and assisted suicide advocacy organization which existed from 1980 to 2003, and took its name from the hemlock plant ''Conium maculatum'', a highly poisonous h ...

and in 2004 after the Society dissolved, he co-founded

Final Exit Network Final Exit Network, Inc. (FEN) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit right to die advocacy group incorporated under Florida law. It holds that mentally competent adults who suffer from a terminal illness, intractable pain, or irreversible physic ...

. From 1988 to 1990 he was president of the

World Federation of Right to Die Societies The World Federation of Right to Die Societies is an international federation of associations that promote access to voluntary euthanasia. It holds regular international meetings on dying and death. The World Federation, founded in 1980, consists ...

. As of 2007 he was the president of the Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization (ERGO). Humphry was the author of the related books ''

Jean's Way ''Jean's Way'' (originally subtitled ''A Love Story''), a book by Derek Humphry, is an account of Humphry's terminally ill wife's planned suicide from suffering. The book is his first on the issue of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide. Ov ...

'' (1978), ''The Right to Die: Understanding Euthanasia'' (1986), and '' Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying'' (1991).

Early years

Born in

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

to a British father and an Irish mother, Humphry was raised in the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath, Somerset, Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the River Frome, Somerset ...

of Somerset. His education was slender because of a broken home followed by World War II, when many English schools were in chaos, finally leaving at the age of 15, when he became a messenger boy for the ''

Yorkshire Post ''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire, although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...

''. In a 30-year journalistic career Humphry worked and wrote for the ''Bristol Evening World'', the ''

Manchester Evening News The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 20 ...

'', the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

'', the ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' and, lastly, the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

''.

In early 1990, Humphry married Gretchen Crocker, youngest daughter of an Oregon farming family. Humphry was a dual British and American citizen. Humphry died of congestive heart failure, in

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...

, on 2 January 2025, aged 94.

Affiliations

Humphry was an advisor to the

by virtue of his past presidency and in appreciation of his 26 years of involvement with that organization. From when it was founded in 2004, Humphry was an adviser to the

. After four members of the organization were accused in Georgia of assisting a suicide, he launched the Final Exit Liberty Fund which paid most of their legal costs. In 2014, Humphry was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the World Federation of Right To Die Societies for "contributing so much, so long and so courageously to our right to a peaceful death." The award was presented by the organization's president, Faye Girsh, at its 20th international conference in Chicago in 2014. It was the first time this award had been made.

Books and publications

Humphry was newsletter editor for the

for a number of years. As of 2016, the paperback ''Final Exit'' was in print in English, Spanish and Italian. It has sold more than one million copies in twelve languages since 1991. In April 2007 the editors and book critics of ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

'' selected ''Final Exit'' as one of the most memorable 25 books of the last quarter century. In 2017 he published his life story, ''Good Life, Good Death: The Memoir of a Right To Die Pioneer'' (Carrel Books, New York. ) The film ''

Nomadland ''Nomadland'' is a 2020 American drama film written, produced, edited and directed by Chloé Zhao. Based on the 2017 nonfiction book '' Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century'' by Jessica Bruder, it stars Frances McDormand a ...

'', which won three Oscars in 2021, mentions ''Final Exit'', but incorrectly attributes the book to

Jack Kevorkian Murad Jacob Kevorkian (May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011) was an American pathologist and euthanasia proponent. He publicly championed a terminal patient's right to die by physician-assisted suicide, embodied in his quote, "Dying is not a crime" ...

. Derek Humphry's books, manuscripts, papers and documents are archived at Special Collections, Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.

Personal life and death

His first wife, Jean Humphry, ended her life on 29 March 1975, in the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds ( ) is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedroc ...

with her husband at her side, with an intentional overdose of medication; she was suffering from terminal bone cancer. Humphry told the story from his perspective in the best-selling ''Jean's Way''. Derek and Jean Humphry had three sons, the youngest one an adoptee. Humphry wrote the 1991 suicide handbook, ''

Final Exit ''Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying,'' often shortened to just ''Final Exit'', is a 1991 book written by Derek Humphry, a British-born American journalist, author, and assisted suicide advocate ...

''. From 1993 Humphry was the president of the Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization (ERGO), and chaired the advisory board of the

(formed 2004 to replace the Hemlock Society dissolved the previous year in mergers). His marriage to his next wife, Ann Wickett, an American and a co-founder of the

, ended in 1989 when she filed for divorce; they had no children.

Bibliography

* ''Because They're Black'' (with

Gus John Augustine John (born 11 March 1945),Biography
Gus John website. . known as Gus John, is a Martin Luther King Memorial Prize The Martin Luther King Memorial Prize was instituted by novelist John Brunner and his wife and was awarded annually to a literary work published in the US or Britain that was deemed to improve interracial understanding,Derek Humphry''Good Life, Go ...

Margaret Gay
"Humphry, Derek (1930–)"
in Kathlyn Gay (ed.), ''American Dissidents: An Encyclopedia of Activists, Subversives, and Prisoners of Conscience, Volume 1'', ABC-CLIO, 2012. * ''Police Power and Black People'' (with a commentary by Gus John; 1973), * ''Passport and Politics'' (with Michael Ward; 1974), * ''The Cricket Conspiracy'' (1975),

National Council for Civil Liberties Liberty, formerly, and still formally, called the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), is an advocacy group and membership organisation based in the United Kingdom, which challenges unjust laws, protects civil liberties and promotes huma ...

, * ''False Messiah: The Story of Michael X'' (1977), * '' Jean's Way: A Love Story'' (1978), * ''The Right to Die: Understanding Euthanasia'' (1986), * '' Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying'' (1991, updated 2002, 3rd edition), * ''Lawful Exit: The Limits of Freedom for Help in Dying'' (1993), * ''Dying with Dignity'' (1992), * ''Freedom to Die: People, Politics & The Right-To-Die Movement'' (1998), * ''Let Me Die Before I Wake'' (& Supplement to ''Final Exit''; 2002), * ''The Good Euthanasia Guide: Where, What & Who in Choices in Dying'' (2006), * ''Good Life, Good Death: The Memoir of a Right To Die Pioneer'',

References

External links

*
Official blog
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Humphry, Derek 1930 births 2025 deaths Deaths from congestive heart failure in the United States 20th-century American novelists 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English novelists American male journalists Assisted suicide in the United Kingdom English activists English male journalists English people of Irish descent Euthanasia activists Euthanasia in the United States People from Bath, Somerset People involved with death and dying People from Junction City, Oregon People from Mendip District Writers from Somerset 21st-century American novelists British emigrants to the United States American male novelists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American activists