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Derek Humphry
interviewed by Anthony Qaiyum on 30 October, 1995
"I helped my first wife commit suicide..."
Derek Humphry is the president of ERGO, the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization. He is also the author of the book "Final Exit," which provides readers with instructions on how to commit suicide.
Tripod: How did you first become interested in the issue of euthanasia?
DH: When in 1975 I helped my first wife commit suicide when she was suffering from terminal cancer.
Tripod: Have you assisted anyone else in dying?
DH: Yes, my father-in-law. It's a matter of record. I helped my father-in-law die.
Tripod: I understand that your state, Oregon, is the only state to have passed a law legalizing assisted deaths. Can you tell me, briefly, what role you played in that?
DH: I was an advisor and a fundraiser. Just part of a team.
Tripod: What is the status of the legislation right now?
DH: It's on hold. The right-to-life movement has secured an injunction against it and we have appealed this injunction, so it's in the courts.
Tripod: Can you tell me about the role of ERGO, and what you do as its president?
DH: Well, it's a research and guidance organization. That's what ERGO stands for. Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization. We distribute information through research and we advise people who call us with their problems with dying. We talk to them, give them advice or refer them to other people. So it's research and guidance, in every sense of the word.
Tripod: Do you ever encounter any criticism because you have profited personally from the euthanasia movement?
DH: Well, from foolish people, yes. But the money has been mostly plowed back into the movement, and I have to live and pay my rent. I'm no richer now than I was before I started euthanasia.
Tripod: I understand that you've had trouble with religious groups. Which ones have been your biggest opponents?
DH: The Roman Catholic Church. It's a dedicated opponent.
Tripod: If you don't mind my asking, would you describe yourself as a religious person?
DH: No, I'm an atheist.
Tripod: Have the influx of pro-life congress members been an obstacle for the advancement of euthanasia legislation?
DH: You mean in Washington DC? Well, no, because altering the law is a state's matter. It's a state's right.
Tripod: Have you encountered problems on the state level, then?
DH: Yes.
Tripod: How do you draw the line legally describing when euthanasia's okay? Is it totally up to the person suffering?
DH: Yes, it's up to the person suffering. As far as legislation goes, we have quite elaborate legislation. In order to spell all that out, it goes over several pages. A person must be physically, terminally ill, must be likely to die within the next six months, and have exhausted all medical treatments. And have thought the matter through.
Tripod: I feel like the idea of euthanasia inherently privileges physical suffering over mental suffering. If a person is going to die a long painful death of cancer, then many people are willing to allow euthanasia. But if a person is losing his or her mind to a mental disease, then we are reluctant to let that person decide that life is not worth living. Do you think this is true?
DH: Yes. And I think, for the moment, that's right. Because I don't think we know enough about the human mind to advocate assisted suicide for mental illness. It may come one day, but we certainly don't know enough about it. So we don't promote assisted suicide for depressed or mentally ill people at all. Not at all.
Tripod: Do you research it, though?
DH: No. There's enough to do with dying people. Two million people die every year in this country. There's enough to do with the normal deaths.
Tripod: Ideally, though, would you say that someday you would envision that?
DH: Only if we get to understand the human mind better.
Tripod: What is the most important goal that you and ERGO have for the coming year?
DH: To press forward with legislation in the states.
Tripod: And do you have a national network that's working on that right now?
DH: Yes. ERGO is only one of many right-to-die groups, and we're all interlinked. There's Hemlock, and there's Compassion, and there's Choice. So it's done with a team effort rather than just ERGO. We're not the big one -- we're part of a team of organizations that are pushing forward on this area.
Tripod: What do you think of the high publicity that Dr. Kevorkian gets with his assisted deaths? Has that helped the movement or hurt it?
DH: Helped it, a great deal.
Tripod: Do you think euthanasia will be accepted in mainstream American medical practice anytime soon?
DH: In various stages over the next twenty years it will be accepted.
Visit Derek Humphry's homepage at: http://www.efn.org/~dhumphry/Or, if you want to learn more about ERGO, stop by their site at: http://www.islandnet.com/~deathnet/ergo.html
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