Hemlock Society

According to former president Faye Girsh, the Hemlock Society was founded in 1980 and was named in reference to Socrates' decision to end his life by drinking hemlock rather than continuing an existence he found intolerable.{{Cite web|url=http://www.hemlocksocietysandiego.org/brief.pdf|title=The Hemlock Story in Brief|last=Girsh|first=Faye|website=hemlocksocietysandiego.org/brief.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706081643/http://www.hemlocksocietysandiego.org/brief.pdf|archive-date=6 July 2017|access-date=4 November 2017}} In the fifth century B.C., Socrates was convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens by encouraging ideas seen as subversive. Though he was sentenced to be executed, Socrates could have escaped into exile, but nevertheless chose death, an act seen as dignified and noble by many supporters of assisted suicide.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

Earlier right-to-die advocacy organizations included the Euthanasia Educational Council founded in 1967, changing its name to Concern for Dying in 1978.{{Cite journal | doi=10.1080/07481187908253325|title = News and notes|journal = Death Education| volume=2| issue=4| pages=433–437|year = 1978}}

The Hemlock Society was started in 1980 after the success of Derek Humphry's book Jean's Way (1978), which recounted how Humphry assisted his wife in committing suicide on 29 March 1975 after a long battle with cancer.{{Cite book|title=Jean's Way|last1=Humphry|first1=Derek|last2=Wickett|first2=Ann|publisher=Quartet Books|year=1978|location=New York|pages=113}}{{failed verification|date=December 2019}} Due to the success of Jean's Way, Humphry had received many letters from people asking for information about assisted suicide. He decided to start the Hemlock Society in an effort to campaign for a change in law and educate the terminally ill on assisted suicide and its methods.{{Cite web|url=http://www.finalexit.org/about_derek_humphry.html|title=About Derek Humphry|last=Humphry|first=Derek|date=2 January 2019|website=Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization (ERGO)|access-date=10 November 2019}}{{unreliable source?|date=December 2019}} Initially started in Humphry's garage in Santa Monica, California, the group eventually moved to Eugene, Oregon, and had many other homes.{{unreliable source?|date=December 2019}}

Let Me Die Before I Wake, Humphry's book on the methods of assisted suicide, was originally published for members of the Hemlock Society. Due to demand for the book, it was published for the market in 1982 and became part of the foundation for the Hemlock Society's reputation and income.{{unreliable source?|date=December 2019}} In 1991, Humphry published Final Exit, subtitled "The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying". The book was a bestseller, though there were calls to ban it.{{cite journal|last=Altman|first=Lawrence K.|date=9 August 1991|title=How-To Book on Suicide Is Atop Best-Seller List|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/09/us/how-to-book-on-suicide-is-atop-best-seller-list.html|journal=The New York Times|via=The New York Times Archive}} After the success of Final Exit, Humphry left the Hemlock Society and started Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization in 1992.{{unreliable source?|date=December 2019}}

The Society was a founding charter member of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, which began in 1980 in Oxford, England, and was led by Sidney D. Rosoff and Humphry. {{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

The Hemlock Society's national membership grew to include 40,000 individuals and eighty chapters.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

The Society backed legislative efforts in California, Washington, Michigan, and Maine without success until the Oregon Death with Dignity Act was passed on October 27, 1997.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

Past Hemlock Society USA presidents included Gerald A. Larue, Derek Humphry, Sidney D. Rosoff, Wiley Morrison, Arthur Metcalfe, John Westover, Faye J. Girsh. Past executive directors included Derek Humphry (acting 1980–1992), Cheryl K. Smith (1992–1993), John A. Pridonoff (1993–1995), Helen Voorhis (acting 1995–1996), and Faye J. Girsh (1996–2000).{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

In the 2010 television film You Don’t Know Jack, which dramatizes the activism of former Oakland County, Michigan pathologist Jack Kevorkian, fellow activist Janet Good (played by Susan Sarandon) meets Kevorkian (played by Al Pacino) during a meeting of the eastern Michigan chapter of the Hemlock Society which Good has organized. Good later offers to let Kevorkian use her home as the location of the assisted suicide of his first patient, Janet Adkins, but later withdraws the offer because her husband Ray, a former member of the Detroit Police Department, questions the legality of assisted suicide in the state. It forces Kevorkian to use his Volkswagen camper van instead.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/27/us/janet-good-73-advocated-the-right-to-die.html|title=Janet Good, 73; Advocated the Right to Die|first=David|last=Stout|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 27, 1997}} Good is later stricken with pancreatic cancer and, on August 26, 1997, becomes Kevorkian's 82nd patient. Oakland County deputy medical examiner Kanu Virani, however, later said Good did not have cancer.{{Cite web|url=http://www.euthanasia.com/jgood.html|title=Janet Good found not to have terminal cancer|website=www.euthanasia.com}}{{unreliable source?|date=December 2019}}

• Compassion & Choices
• Oregon Death with Dignity Act
• Right to Die
• World Federation of Right to Die Societies

{{reflist}}

The archives of the Hemlock Society and Derek Humphry are at the Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle, United States

• {{cite book |first1=George Howe |last1=Colt |title=The Enigma of Suicide |location=New York |publisher=Summit Books |year=1991 |isbn=978-0671509965}}
• {{cite book |last1=Côté |first1=Richard N |title=In search of gentle death : the fight for your right to die with dignity |year=2008 |location=Mt. Pleasant, S.C. |publisher=Corinthian Books |isbn=978-1929175369 }}
• {{cite book |first1=Donald W. |last1=Cox |title=Hemlock's Cup: The Struggle for Death With Dignity |publisher=Prometheus Books |edition= |date= 1993 |isbn=978-0879758080 }}
• {{cite book |first1=Ian |last1=Dowbiggin |title=A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in America |location=Oxford; New York|publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0198035152}}
• {{cite book |first1=Peter G. |last1=Filene |title=In The Arms of Others: A Cultural History of the Right-to-Die in America |location=Chicago|publisher=Ivan R. Dee |year=1998 |page=196 |isbn=978-1566631884 }}
• {{cite book |first1=Henry R. |last1=Glick |title=The Right to Die: Policy Innovation and Its Consequences |location=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0231076388 |url=https://archive.org/details/righttodiepolicy00glic}}
• {{cite book |first1=Daniel |last1=Hillyard |first2=John |last2=Dombrink |title=Dying Right: The Death With Dignity Movement |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |year=2001 |isbn=978-0415927987}}
• [http://www.assistedsuicide.org/ Farewell to Hemlock: Killed by its name], an essay by Derek Humphry 21 February 2005
• {{cite book |first1=Derek |last1=Humphry |author-link1=Derek Humphry |title=Good Life, Good Death – Memoir of a writer who became a euthanasia advocate |location=Junction City, Oregon |publisher=Norris Lane Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0976828334}}
• {{cite book |first1=Constance E. |last1=Putnam |title=Hospice or Hemlock? Searching for Heroic Compassion |location=Westport, Connecticut |publisher=Praeger |year=2002 |isbn=978-0897899215 |url=https://archive.org/details/hospiceorhemlock00cons}}
• {{cite book |first1=Sidney, MD |last1=Wanzer |first2=Joseph, MD |last2=Glenmullen |title=To Die Well. Your Right to Comfort, Calm and Choices in the Last Days of Your Life |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=Lifelong Books/Da Capo Press, Merloyd Lawrence Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-0738210834 |url=https://archive.org/details/todiewellyourrig00sidn_0}}

• [https://www.finalexit.org Final Exit], website of Derek Humphry
• [http://www.hemlockflorida.org/ Hemlock Foundation of Florida Inc.]
• [http://www.hemlocksocietysandiego.org/ Hemlock Society of San Diego]
• [https://www.compassionandchoices.org/ Compassion & Choices]

{{Authority control}}

Category:Assisted suicide in the United States