Founding the Hemlock Society, Derek Humphry Ep. 8

Derek Humpry is an author and principal founder of the Hemlock Society (now Compassion & Choices). Derek shares his poignant story about helping his wife, who was terminally ill, end her life and how he founded the Hemlock Society. Derek's website: FinalExit.org Transcript Dr. Bob: Welcome to A Life and Death Conversation with Dr. Bob Uslander. I'm very excited to introduce you to today's guest, who is a gentleman who I recently had the pleasure of meeting and listening to during a presentation at a conference. And I just knew when I met and heard him speak that he is somebody who you needed to hear from. I could go on for quite a long time listing his achievements and his accolades in this introduction, but I don't want to take too much of our valuable time away from the conversation, so I will just give a little glimpse of the instruction to Mr. Derek Humphry, who is the founder of the Hemlock Society of the USA, past president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, and Derek has been an incredibly strong proponent of people having the ability to determine how and when they their lives will end when they are struggling. He's been very active through his entire life in this regard and is in large part responsible for the movement through in this country that is certainly effective here on the West Coast, in California, in Oregon, in Washington that has allowed people to have a peaceful end of life. And I owe him gratitude because he has allowed me to delve into a part of my career that has really been incredibly gratifying, and he's brought great relief to many, many people around the world. So, Derek, I just want to introduce you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you've done. So welcome. Derek Humphry: Well, hello. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's been a worthwhile journey. I founded the Hemlock Society in 1980 when I lived in Santa Monica and developed it from there. And it was, I didn't do it in any obviously pioneering way thought, but it proved to be the start of the right-to-choose-to-die movement in America as we grew and grew and fought off our critics and published little books and held conferences, the right-to-choose-to-die movement swelled and improved across America ever since 1980. Dr. Bob: So let me ask, how did this all start? I know, and I heard the story, but I'd like people to hear where this movement originated and how it started for you. Derek Humphry: Yes. I was living in London. I was a reporter on the London Sunday Times. And I had a good marriage, a wife, and three sons, and we were getting along fine. And it's great fun bringing up three sons. But suddenly in 1973 my wife, Jean, said that she had a lump in her breast. We rushed her to the hospital, and various testing and so forth. And they had to perform a radical mastectomy, much to her shock and all of our shock. She recovered from that as best she could, but we have further testing of her lymph nodes and blood count and all the rest of it. And it showed that she had cancer deep in her system. It was too late. But we fought, and she fought, took all medical help available, kept her spirits up looking after the family and so forth. She kept it only in a close circle of friends or family did she say that she had cancer. But in about a year it turned to bone cancer, very painful, very difficult to be moving at all except with heavy pain medications. And then after nearly two years, it was really serious, and she nearly died. She was in the hospital in Oxford, England, getting the best treatment that was available back in 1975, and she recovered from one bout, and the doctor thought she wouldn't come out of that. But she did, and she had a fighting spirit. Then came my epiphany. She sat up in bed feeling pretty well in the hospital bed, and I was visiting her. And she said, "Derek, I want you to do something for me." I said, "What's that?" She said, "I've had enough of this pain and unconsciousness. It's getting near the end. I want to die at home. I don't want ..." She took hospitals pretty well, but she was in the cancer ward, and she'd seen too many people die with the families rushing in in the middle of the night to say their goodbyes and a lot of pain and tears. She said, "I want to die at home. I also want to end my life at the point when I feel the quality of my life is gone and that there's no more hope and no more chance of living. And I want you to help me." There wasn't a right-to-die movement in America or Britain to speak of. There were little token meetings, but it was not a subject of public discussion or knowledge. I think I would have had to go to a dictionary to look up the word euthanasia or so forth. I said, "What do you want me to do?" She said, "I want you to go ..." In a way, she prefigured the laws. She didn't know she was doing this, prefigured the laws that are coming into place in six stat...