 Jean's Way | |
| Author | Derek Humphry |
|---|---|
| Language | English and 8 languages |
| Subjects | Right to die Assisted suicide Voluntary euthanasia |
| Publisher | Norris Lane Press |
Published in English | 2003, latest printing |
| Media type | paperback and eBook |
| Pages | 160 |
| ISBN | 0-9637280-7-5 |
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.
Derek Humphry, a journalist on the London Sunday Times and author of Because They're Black, published Jean's Way in 1978. The book became a bestseller in the UK,[ citation needed ] was translated into eight languages,[ which? ][ citation needed ] and has been reprinted 17 times.[ citation needed ]+
The 2003 printing in English by Norris Lane Press ( ISBN 0-9637280-7-5) is 160 pages and includes a new full-color jacket and updated preface. The 2003 English edition is available in paperback and eBook formats.
Jean's Way translations have been published in Finland, Norway, Hebrew, Japan, Poland, Spain, Mexico, France, Turkey and Germany.[ citation needed ]
Jean Humphry was born Jean Edna Crane on March 23, 1932, in Hulme (Manchester), UK. Her family moved to Wythenshawe, a Manchester suburb, where Jean received a public school education. In 1951 Miss Crane was appointed 'Miss Wythenshawe', a volunteer task ceremoniously to open fetes, flower shows and exhibitions as the district had no Mayor. On May 4, 1953, Jean married Derek Humphry in Manchester. They had three sons, one adopted. She died March 29, 1975, in Langley Burrell, Wiltshire, as a consequence of breast cancer which had become carcinomatosis.
At the time of the first publication's first edition, not only was assisted suicide against the law, it was also highly taboo.
Jean Humphry had suffered for more than two years from breast cancer, which spread throughout her whole body, as described in the first nine chapters. She decided it was her time for an assisted death, and proceeded with her plan so that she could die in peace and dignity in her own home rather than in hospital. This was an individual decision; the couple did not know then (1975) about euthanasia and assisted suicide, which later became highly controversial as the right to die issue mushroomed. Living Wills were then just becoming known.
Some nine months earlier, the couple had made a pact at Jean's instigation that she could take her life if she wished if the final weeks were unbearable to her. Jean had stipulated that she would only do it with Derek's agreement.
At Jean's request, Derek secured a lethal overdose from a sympathetic doctor and stored it in a secure place in their home in Wiltshire. When the pain and distress became too great to bear, Jean asked for the drugs so that she could die. When she was ready, Derek mixed the lethal potion into a mug of coffee. After saying, "Goodbye, my love" Jean downed the drink and died within the hour.
In Chapter 10, Is This the Day?, Derek describes her last day before her death. [1]
On publication of the book, British police asked Derek if it was true, and he signed a statement to the effect that it was. But the Director of Public Prosecutions, who has discretion over assisted suicide laws, decided not to prosecute Derek.
The popularity of Jean's Way started the movement to legalize assisted suicide as a choice for competent adults at the end of life. (Previously, the movement had concentrated solely on 'voluntary euthanasia' by direct injection.)
Derek founded the Hemlock Society in 1980 to campaign for greater acceptance of justifiable assisted suicide and also wrote the international bestselling book Final Exit .
In 1990, Jean's Way became the basis for a dramatic stage play entitled Is This the Day? written by Vilma Hollingbery. It had its world premiere at the Royal Theatre in Northampton, UK, and had short runs in Germany and the USA.
The book foreshadowed the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, which Derek pioneered in 1986 and as a team player worked for its eventual passage in 1994. In the application of both Oregon law and Swiss law, with legally approved ways of assisting deaths at the end of life, Jean's Way is the method used. In Switzerland it is used by Dignitas and EXIT, the Swiss society for humane dying. [2]
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(March 2015) |
Euthanasia is the practise of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
Assisted suicide – alternately referred to as medical aid in dying – means a procedure in which people take medications to end their own lives with the help of others, usually medical professionals. The term usually refers to physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which is an end of life measure for a person suffering a painful, terminal illness. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifies under the physician-assisted suicide laws for that location, the physician's assistance is usually limited to writing a prescription for a lethal dose of drugs.
The right to die is a concept based on the opinion that human beings are entitled to end their life or undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often understood that a person with a terminal illness, incurable pain, or without the will to continue living, should be allowed to end their own life, use assisted suicide, or to decline life-prolonging treatment. The question of who, if anyone, may be empowered to make this decision is often the subject of debate.
Measure 16 of 1994 established the U.S. state of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, which legalizes medical aid in dying with certain restrictions. Passage of this initiative made Oregon the first U.S. state and one of the first jurisdictions in the world to permit some terminally ill patients to determine the time of their own death.
Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization in the United States working to improve patient autonomy and individual choice at the end of life, including access to medical aid in dying. Its primary function is advocating for and ensuring access to aid in dying.
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 who co-founded the now-defunct Hemlock Society in 1980 and co-founded the Final Exit Network in 2004. The book was first published in 1991 by the Hemlock Society US in hardback. The following year, its 2nd edition was published by Dell in trade paperback. The current updated edition was published in 2010.
Voluntary euthanasia is the ending of a person's life at their request in order to relieve them of suffering. Voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of intense debate in recent years.
Derek Humphry is a British-born American journalist and author notable as a proponent of legal assisted suicide and the right to die. In 1980, he co-founded the Hemlock Society and, in 2004, after that organization dissolved, he co-founded Final Exit Network. From 1988 to 1990, he was president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies and is the current president of the Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization (ERGO).
Suicide is a crime in some parts of the world. However, while suicide has been decriminalized in many countries, the act is almost universally stigmatized and discouraged. In some contexts, suicide could be utilized as an extreme expression of liberty, as is exemplified by its usage as an expression of devout dissent towards perceived tyranny or injustice which occurred occasionally in cultures such as ancient Rome, medieval Japan, or today's Tibet Autonomous Region.
The Hemlock Society was an American right-to-die and assisted suicide advocacy organization which existed from 1980 to 2003. It was co-founded in Santa Monica, California by British author and activist Derek Humphry, his wife Ann Wickett Humphry and Gerald A. Larue. It relocated to Oregon in 1988 and, according to Humphry, had several homes over the course of its life. The group took its name from Conium maculatum, a highly poisonous biennial herbaceous flowering plant in the carrot family. The name was a direct reference to the method by which the Athenian philosopher Socrates took his life in 399 BC, as described in Plato's Phaedo.
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.
Dignity in Dying is a United Kingdom nationwide campaigning organisation. It is funded by voluntary contributions from members of the public, and as of December 2010, it claimed to have 25,000 actively subscribing supporters. The organisation declares it is independent of any political, religious or other affiliations, and has the stated primary aim of campaigning for individuals to have greater choice and more control over end-of-life decisions, so as to alleviate any suffering they may be undergoing as they near the end of their life.
Dignitas is a Swiss nonprofit organization providing physician-assisted suicide to members with terminal illness or severe physical or mental illness, supported by independent Swiss doctors. By the end of 2020, they had assisted 3,248 people with suicide at home within Switzerland and at Dignitas' house/flat near Zürich. They provide advisory work on palliative care, health care advance directives, and suicide attempt prevention, and legislation for right-to-die laws around the world.
The legality of euthanasia varies between countries and territories. Efforts to change government policies on euthanasia of humans in the 20th and 21st centuries have met with limited success in Western countries. Human euthanasia policies have also been developed by a variety of NGOs, most advocacy organisations although medical associations express a range of perspectives, and supporters of palliative care broadly oppose euthanasia.
A euthanasia device is a machine engineered to allow an individual to die quickly with minimal pain. The most common devices are those designed to help terminally ill people die by voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide without prolonged pain. They may be operated by a second party, such as a physician, or by the person wishing to die. There is an ongoing debate on the ethics of euthanasia and the use of euthanasia devices.
Euthanasia became legal in New Zealand when the End of Life Choice Act 2019 took full effect on 7 November 2021. It is illegal to "aid and abet suicide" under Section 179 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961. The clauses of this act make it an offence to "incite, procure or counsel" and "aid and abet" someone else to commit suicide, regardless of whether a suicide attempt is made or not. Section 179 covers both coercion to undertake assisted suicide and true suicide, such as that caused by bullying. This will not change under the End of Life Choices Act 2019, which has provisions on coercion of terminally ill people.
Assisted suicide is suicide with the aid of another person. In the United States, the term "assisted suicide" is typically used to describe what proponents refer to as medical aid in dying, in which terminally ill adults are prescribed and self-administer barbiturates if they feel that they are suffering significantly. The term is often used interchangeably with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), "physician-assisted dying", "physician-assisted death", "assisted death" and "medical aid in dying" (MAiD).
Active euthanasia is illegal in Switzerland, but supplying the means for dying is legal, as long as the action which directly causes death is performed by the one wishing to die. Assisted suicide in the country has been legal since 1941, and Switzerland was the first country in the world to permit any kind of assisted dying. In 2014, a total of 752 assisted suicides were performed, compared to 1,029 non-assisted suicides ; most of the assisted suicides concerned elderly people suffering from a terminal disease. In what critics have termed suicide tourism, Swiss euthanasia organisations have been widely used by foreigners. As of 2008, German citizens were 60 percent of the total number of suicides assisted by the organisation Dignitas.
Exit is a not-for-profit, pro-euthanasia organisation based in Scotland that lobbies for and provides information about voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide. It has particularly focused on research and publication of works which provide information about suicide methods, including How to Die With Dignity, the first book published on the subject.
On 29 November 2017, Victoria became the first Australian state to pass legislation allowing assisted suicide. The law gives anyone suffering a terminal illness, with less than six months to live, the right to end their life. The law had an 18-month implementation period, and came into effect on 19 June 2019.