D.I.Y. for ‘mercy killers’

Press, 30 August 1980, Page 16

D.I.Y. for ‘mercy killers’

By

WILLIAM SCOBIE,

“Observer,” London

At the same time as British advocates for euthanasia scrapped plans for a controversial do-it-yourself guide to suicide for the terminally sick, an American society . announced it would soon market its own “superior” manual on "self-deliv-erance,” in defiance of United States law. EXIT, the British group, said that its 10,000-word pamphlet had been dropped for fear of prosecution, but Derek Humphry, director of. the newly formed,. California* based Hemlock Society, says he will push ahead with his plans "because we know many thousands of people want this information.

“We have to try to create a climate of opinion that will tolerate the right of the terminally ill to end their own lives,” he adds. Whether a book that spells out in detail how — and how not — to commit suicide would promote such an atmosphere is

moot. Many legal experts believe Hemlock is headed for a run-in with the law. Aiding and abetting . sui- ■ cide is a crime in California (as it is in New Zealand). The Hemlockians hope to avoid legal snares by casting their guide in the form of case histories of “voluntary active euthanasia” — suicide by the .

terminally ill, preferably with the help of family dr friends; It will list a variety of D.I.Y methods, with choices of drugs and lethal dosage. ... For Humphry, aged 50, a . recent British settler in California, it would not be the first. legal confrontation over euthanasia. In 1978, he published “Jean’s Way’,” an account of how he helped his 42-year-old wife, a bone cancer victim, to “die on her

own terms, not those of the disease that ravaged her body.” Questioned by the police, Humphry admitted administering lethal drugs, but Britain’s Director of Public Prosecutions ruled that there was “insufficient evidence” to It is not only the law that is troubled by the

Hemlock approach. Even leaders of the right-to-die movement . itself are strongly opposed to the idea of assisting suicide. The two biggest United States groups, Concern for-Dying and the. Society for the Right to J Die — with 200j000 members between? them — have both, refused to handle. any information that could help people “decide the maimer and means of them own* death;”

These groups campaign merely for legislation allowing termination of “heroic” life-saving measures at a dying person’s request. Since California passed a pioneering Natural Death Act in 1976, that is now permitted in 10 American- states. “There is no way to prevent such a book falling into the wrong hands,” says Alice Mehling, director of the Society for the Right to Die. "You are giving a weapon to the depressed and the temporarily, .suicidal young.” In Britain,'. she . adds, ■ there is one clear law? as to.what constitutes, aiding and abetting a crime. “In the United States, we have 50 different laws. The legal problems of distributing such a book would be immense.” Dr -Philip Dreisbach, secretary of the Pro-Life Medical Association of California, whose 1000 members are ' largely. Roman Catholic, says:

“Publication of the Hemlock book could open the way to a wide range of -abuses. There’s no way you can control a programme like that? once it gets quasi-legal sanction.” Dreisbach, a tumour specialist with a large California practice, says that no terminal patient has ever asked him for lethal drugs. "That’s more common in the early stages, when the., depressed, despairing patient thinks he can’t bear what’s ahead. The fact is, we can control pain, and if a patient isn’t getting enough relief, then probably . he has an incompetent physician.” Humphry, a grey-haired six-footer who radiates missionary zeal in discussing euthanasia,, disagrees. “Jean’s Way” .brought him nearly 1000 letters and calls from the dying and their relatives,, who wanted, to know how. they could end lives, in ex« trends, or where.such data. | could be obtained.