Upset by Hemlock’s grim guide

Press, 2 June 1981, Page 20

Upset by Hemlock’s grim guide

By

WILLIAM SCOBIE

in'Los Angeles

A storm is blowing up over America's first do-it-your-self guide to suicide for the terminally ill. It is being published by California’s “active voluntary euthanasia society,” which is called Hemlock.

The book gives details of lethal doses and methods of “bloodless self-deliverance” in a country where most states have laws (some calling for a life sentence) against aiding, encouraging or “advising” suicide. The guide is strongly opposed by “pro-life” groups and “passive” euthanasia societies — those which argue chiefly against prolongation of life through artificial means. "We expect flak,” said the founder and director of Hemlock, Mr Derek Humphry, “But there is a tremendous hunger for. this book, not just from people who are dying, but from those who have watched others

die, who want the assurance ot knowing they have their own way of checking out.” Mr Humphry a 51-year-old Briton, revealed in his 1978 book “Jean’s Way” that he had given his wife, a bone-cancer victim, a lethal drug dose at her request “so that she might die on her own terms, not those of the disease that ravaged her body.” Questioned by British police, he was not prosecuted. After moving to Los Angeles he founded Hemlock in 1980 as “the only United States organisation arguing for active euthanasia, deciding and doing it yourself before a grim end.” His book, “Let me Die Before I Wake” — available to Hemlock members only — differs considerably from the coldly technical suicide guide published last year by Scottish Exit, another euthanasia group. Cast in the form of personal

stories of terminally ill patients helped to a “good death” (and sometimes to a horribly botched one) by relatives or friends, the book reveals dosages and methods incidentally. But the crucial information is very much there, in precise footnotes, in detailed descriptions of the effects of scores of drugs and poisons, from the humble aspirin to strychnine to hemlock itself (definitely counter-indicated, says the author). Suggestions for obtaining the appropriate drugs are included. Concern for Dying and the Society for the Right to Die, America’s two big passive euthanasia groups, refused to touch the book. Mrs A. J. Levenson, director of the 250,000-member Concern for Dying, said: “We feel very sad that the Hemlock people feel this needs to be done.. “A book like this is almost an encouragement to suicide. It

could lead to thoughts that it is not only okay, but even the best, the right, the dutiful thing to do. What does that say to an 80-year old woman crippled with arthritis and dependent on others? And what, an onus of guilt may be laid for the rest of life on the person who assists.”

Catholic groups, such as California’s Pro-Life Medical Association, complain that Hemlock is “opening the way to abuses and giving quasi-legal sanction” to assisted suicide. The Hospice Movement is also strongly disapproving. Mr Humphry responds: “Some 60,000 Americans a year commit suicide (oficially 30,000, but authorities believe twice that number go unre-> ported). Many are desperatively ill people who do, it in needlessly horrible w'ays. Others maim themselves terribly in the attempt.” Copyright — London Observer Service.