Freedom to Die: People, Politics, and the Right-To-Die Movement (Hardcover)

Over the last decade, America has served as the battleground for a major political, social, cultural, and religious war over one of the most fundamental questions we face: the right to die. Indeed, much like abortion in the 1970s, the right to die has emerged as one of the most urgent social issues for the coming years.

The strength of the right-to-die movement was underscored as early as 1991, when Derek Humphrey published FINAL EXIT, the movement's call to arms that inspired literally hundreds of thousands of Americans who wished to understand the concepts of assisted suicide and the right to die with dignity. Humphrey's controversial work, which spent eighteen weeks on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list, had an impact on society that few books of our time can rival.

Now Humphrey has joined forces with attorney Mary Clement to write FREEDOM TO DIE, which places this civil rights story witin the framework of American social history. More than a chronology of the movement, this book explores the inner motivations of an entire society. Reaching back to the years before World War II, FREEDOM TO DIE explores the roots of the movement and answers the questions: Why now, at the end of the twentieth century, has the right-to-die movement become part of the mainstream debate?

Humphrey and Clement describe the increasing ferocity of the conflict, from the initial struggles over Karen Ann Quinlan's fate to Califoria's pioneering Living Wills, through the founding of the taboo-shattering Hemlock Society, to the media-grabbing tactics of medical agitator Jack Kevorkian, to the landmark decisions of the Supreme Court, and to the recent initiative in the state of Oregon, which has served as a trailblazer of the movement by legalizing medically assisted death procedures.

As the events in Oregon show, the American public has demonstrated that it wants the right to choose a dignified death. Yet the issue has, like abortion and gay rights, become increasingly incendiary. Pitting the will of the people against the massive power of political and cultural leviathans, the right-to-die movement provides a lens through which we can better understand America's recent popular history of rights cultures, technological development, and the seemingly limitless power of institutions (medical, religious, and other) to prescribe how we live our lives.

In a reasoned voice, which stands out dramatically amid the vituperative clamoring of the religious right, the authors examine the potential dangers of assisted suicide--suggesting ways to avert the negative consequences of legalization--even as they argue why it should be legalized. Intelligent, sober, and controversial, this book, with its deep ethical framework, does for the right-to-die movement what AND THE BAND PLAYED ON did for the fight against AIDS.

From the Back Cover Since the hugely controversial Quinlan case of 1976, the right-to-die movement has grown as a sweeping social movement that has galvanized millions of Americans and goreigners to demand broad legislation that gives them the right to opt for medically assisted suicide when confronting a fatal illness. In this history of the right-to-die movement, Derek Humphrey, the founder of the Hemlock Socieity, and Mary Clement penetrate the root of the passion that pervades the issue, which has forced Americans to reexamine their nation's moral and ethical framework. The most up-to-date history of the movement, FREEDOM TO DIE is guaranteed to stir up debate across the natiion.

About the Author Derek Humphrey, the founder of the Hemlock Society, has been campaigning for more than twenty years for the right to choose to die. He lives in Oregon. Mary Clement is an attorney and president of Gentle Closure, Inc., an organization that assists people in addressing all end-of-life concerns. She lives in Arizona.