Health
Derek Humphry, Pivotal Figure in Right-to-Die Movement, Dies at 94
Derek Humphry, a British-born journalist whose experience helping his terminally-ill wife end her life led him to become a crusading pioneer in the right-to-die movement and publish “Final Exit,” a best-selling guide to suicide, died on Jan. 2 in Eugene, Ore. He was 94.
His death, at a hospice facility, was announced by his family.
With a populist flair and a knack for speaking matter-of-factly about death, Mr. Humphry almost single-handedly galvanized a national conversation about physician-assisted suicide in the early 1980s, a period when the idea had been little more than an esoteric theory batted around by medical ethicists.
“He was the one who really put this cause on the map in America,” said Ian Dowbiggin, a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island and the author of “A Concise History of Euthanasia: Life, Death, God, and Medicine” (2005). “The people who support the notion of physician assisted suicide absolutely owe him a big thanks.”
In 1975, Mr. Humphry was working as a reporter for The Sunday Times of London when Jean Humphry, his wife of 22 years, was in the final stages of terminal bone cancer. Hoping to avoid prolonged suffering, she asked him to help her die.
Mr. Humphry procured a lethal dose of painkillers from a sympathetic doctor and mixed them with coffee in her favorite mug.
“I took her the mug and told her if she drank it she’d die immediately,” Mr. Humphry told The Daily Record in Scotland. “Then I gave her a hug, kissed her and we said our goodbyes.”
Mr. Humphry chronicled the emotional, taboo and legally-fraught pursuit of his wife’s hastened death in “Jean’s Way” (1979). The book, excerpted in newspapers around the world, was a sensation. Readers sent letters to the editor discussing the suffering of their loved ones. Many wrote directly to Mr. Humphry.
“I wish we had a solution like yours,” a woman wrote, describing her husband’s last eight weeks of life as “a horror.” “How much more beautiful, how much more ‘love.’ We did what others forced us to do and experienced that dreadful ‘death’ the medical world gives by prolonging life in every possible way.”
In their letters, some readers pleaded for instructions to help their loved ones die. That prompted Mr. Humphry, by then remarried and working in California for The Los Angeles Times, to think about creating an organization to advocate for assisted suicide and end-of-life rights for the terminally ill.
Ann Wickett Humphry, his second wife, suggested using Hemlock as a title, “arguing that most Americans associate the word with the death of Socrates, a man who discussed and planned his death,” Mr. Humphry later wrote in an updated edition of “Jean’s Way.”
In August 1980, they rented the Los Angeles Press Club to announce the establishment of the Hemlock Society, which they ran out of the garage of their Santa Monica home.
The organization grew quickly. In 1981, it issued “Let Me Die Before I Wake,” a guide to medicines and dosages for inducing “peaceful self-deliverance.” The group also lobbied state legislatures to enact laws making assisted suicide legal. In 1990, the Hemlock Society moved to Eugene. By then, it had more than 30,000 members, but the right-to-die conversation hadn’t yet reached most dinner tables in America.
That changed spectacularly in 1991, after Mr. Humphry published “Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying.” The book was a 192-page step-by-step guide that, in addition to explaining suicide methods, provided Miss Manners-like tips for exiting gracefully.
“If you are unfortunately obliged to end your life in a hospital or motel,” he wrote, “it is gracious to leave a note apologizing for the shock and inconvenience to the staff. I have also heard of an individual leaving a generous tip to a motel staff.”
The book shot quickly to No. 1 in the hardcover advice category of The New York Times Best Sellers list.
“That is an indication of how large the issue of euthanasia looms in our society now,” the bioethicist Dr. Arthur Caplan told The Times in 1991. “It is frightening and disturbing, and that kind of sales figure is a shot across the bow. It is the loudest statement of protest of how medicine is dealing with terminal illness and dying.”
Reactions to “Final Exit” were generally divided along ideological lines. Conservatives blasted it.
“What can one say about this new ‘book’? In one word: evil,” the University of Chicago bioethicist Leon R. Kass wrote in Commentary magazine, calling Mr. Humphry “the Lord High Executioner.” “I did not want to read it, I do not want you to read it. It should never have been written, and it does not deserve to be dignified with a review, let alone an article.”
But progressives embraced the book, even as public health experts expressed concern that the methods it laid out could be used by depressed people who weren’t terminally ill.
“I’ve read ‘Final Exit’ out of curiosity, but I’ll keep it for another reason — because I can imagine, having once nursed a cancer patient, the day when I might want to use it,” the New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen wrote, adding, “And if that day comes, whose business is it, really, but my own and that of those I love?”
Rather than worrying about the book’s contents, Ms. Quindlen said, “we should look for ways to insure that dignified death is available in places other than the chain bookstore at the mall.”
Derek John Humphry was born on April 29, 1930, in Bath, England. His father, Royston Martin Humphry, was a traveling salesman. His mother, Bettine (Duggan) Humphry, had been a fashion model before marrying.
After leaving school at age 15, Derek got a job as a newspaper messenger. The next year, The Bristol Evening World hired him as a reporter. He went on to report for The Manchester Evening News and The Daily Mail before moving to The Sunday Times of London and then The Los Angeles Times.
Before turning to books about death, Mr. Humphry wrote “Because They’re Black” (1971), an examination of racial discrimination written with Gus John, a Black social worker; and “Police Power and Black People” (1972), about racism and corruption in Scotland Yard.
Mr. Humphry was a polarizing figure even within the right-to-die movement.
In 1990, he and Ms. Wickett Humphry divorced and fought bitterly in the news media. She called him a “fraud,” accusing him of leaving her because she had been diagnosed with cancer. Mr. Humphry denied the allegation.
“This was a very shaky marriage,” he told The New York Times in 1990. “This is extremely painful, as bad as Jean’s death. I’ve lost my home; I’ve lived in a motel for three months.”
Ms. Wickett Humphry killed herself in October of 1991.
In a video recorded the day before, she expressed misgivings about the work they had done together, including helping her parents end their lives at home.
“I walked away from that house thinking we’re both murderers,” she said in the video, which was reviewed by The Times.
Mr. Humphry went into “damage control” mode, he told The Times. He placed a half-page advertisement in the paper explaining his side of the story.
“Sadly, for much of her life Ann was dogged by emotional problems,” the advertisement said, adding that “suicide for reasons of depression has never been part of the credo of the Hemlock.”
Ms. Wickett Humphry’s death and reservations about the right-to-die movement caused strain within the Hemlock Society. Mr. Humphry resigned as executive director in 1992 and started the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization.
The Hemlock Society eventually splintered into several new groups, including The Final Exit Network, which Mr. Humphry helped start.
He married Gretchen Crocker in 1991. She survives him, along with three sons from his first marriage; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Lowrey Brown, a Final Exit Network “exit guide” who helps terminally-ill patients plan their deaths, said in an interview that her clients sometimes credit Mr. Humphry and “Final Exit” for giving them the courage to end their lives.
“It was the Hemlock Society and the book ‘Final Exit’ that really crossed the threshold of getting this into ordinary Americans living rooms as a discussion topic,” Ms. Brown said. “You could talk about it at the Thanksgiving dinner table.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Chronic pain can be debilitating and frustrating, especially among aging adults.
While physical remedies and treatments can provide some relief, experts have found that shifting one’s mindset — or the way the brain approaches pain — can actually ease the discomfort.
Dr. Daniel Amen, a California-based psychiatrist and founder of Amen Clinics, has studied how changing the brain can help defeat chronic pain, as shared in his new book, “Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain.”
YOUR BRAIN DOESN’T AGE THE WAY YOU THINK – NEW RESEARCH UPENDS OLD BELIEFS
In an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital, Amen noted that many people don’t know that chronic pain doesn’t just live in the joints, the knees or the back.
“If it’s been around for more than three weeks, it is now living in your brain,” he said. “There are actually circuits in your brain that feel pain. They feel both physical pain and emotional pain.”
Pain that sticks around for more than three weeks is also living in the brain, according to the doctor. (iStock)
Some medications that treat depression are FDA-approved for chronic pain, treating both emotional and physical imbalances, according to Amen.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER
“It’s because they work on the same circuits in the brain,” he said. “The healthier your brain is, the less physical pain and emotional pain you’ll be in.”
That doesn’t mean, however, someone is “making up” the discomfort in their head, the psychiatrist emphasized.
“It’s going to be a lot more effective if you get your back and your brain working together.” (iStock)
If the brain — which is an organ like any other — begins to work too hard in certain areas, or not hard enough, finding ways to balance it can ease pain and calm the whole body, Amen noted.
In his book, he introduces the “doom loop” — chronic pain activates the suffering circuit in the brain, which then triggers negativity and muscle tension, followed by bad habits.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIES
“It gets you into the spiral … Your brain is out of control,” Amen said. “Which means if you have back pain, all the muscles around that inflamed area are clamping down and making you hurt even more.”
“It doesn’t mean you won’t need surgery — it just means it’s going to be a lot more effective if you get your back and your brain working together.”
“The healthier your brain is, the less physical pain and emotional pain you’ll be in.”
For people dealing with chronic pain, Amen recommends first checking in on the health of the brain.
“Ask yourself, ‘What does the pain mean to you?’” he suggested, adding that the biggest worry around pain is often the fear of losing freedom.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Pain is often a symptom of repressed rage, Amen said, citing rehabilitation physician and chronic pain author John Sarno.
“Repressed emotions have to go somewhere, and they in fact go to the pain circuits in your brain that can then activate back pain, knee pain, neck pain,” he shared.
Amen warned of falling into the “doom loop,” which leads from physical pain to negativity, muscle tension and bad habits. (iStock)
The doctor suggested a practice he calls “emotional freedom,” which involves journaling about every five-year span of your life, writing down what happened during those blocks of time. This can include positive experiences, or moments of sorrow and anguish.
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ
“You really get a sense of where these repressed emotions could be,” he said.
Keeping a positive attitude and optimistic outlook can also suppress anger, therefore relieving pain, the doctor added.
Use left and right arrow keys to navigate between menu items.
Use escape to exit the menu.
Sign Up
Create a free account to access exclusive content, play games, solve puzzles, test your pop-culture knowledge and receive special offers.
Already have an account? Login
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A large-scale international study found that creative activities such as music, dance, painting and even certain video games may help keep the brain biologically “younger.”
Researchers from 13 countries — including teams at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland and SWPS University in Poland — analyzed brain data from more than 1,400 adults of all ages worldwide and found that those who regularly pursue creative hobbies show brain patterns that appear younger than their actual age.
Even short bursts of creative activity, such as a few weeks of strategy-based video gaming, had noticeable benefits, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications in October.
7 KEY BEHAVIORS THAT COULD SHIELD YOUR BRAIN FROM PARKINSON’S DISEASE
Scientists collected brain data from people with advanced experience in tango, music, visual art and strategy gaming, but they also recruited non-experts for comparison. In addition, a third group of beginners underwent short-term training in StarCraft II, a strategy video game, so researchers could see how learning a new creative skill affects the brain over just a few weeks.
A new study found that creative activities can help the brain stay biologically younger. (iStock)
All participants underwent EEG and MEG brain scans that were fed into machine-learning “brain age” models, or brain clocks, which estimate how old the brain appears biologically versus chronologically. Researchers then used advanced computer models to explore why creativity might protect the brain and found that the hobbies help strengthen the networks responsible for coordination, attention, movement and problem-solving, which can weaken with age.
SCIENTISTS UNCOVER HOW SOME 80-YEAR-OLDS HAVE THE MEMORY OF 50-YEAR-OLDS
People with years of creative practice showed the strongest reductions in brain age, but even beginners saw improvements, with strategy games boosting brain-age markers after roughly 30 hours of training.
“One of our key takeaways is that you do not need to be an expert to benefit from creativity,” Dr. Carlos Coronel, first author and postdoctoral fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College Dublin and Universidad Adolfo Ibanez, said in a statement. “Indeed, we found that learners gained from brief video game training sessions.”
The findings show that creativity may be just as important for brain health as exercise and diet. (iStock)
According to the researchers, this was the first large-scale evidence directly linking multiple creative fields to slower brain aging, though previous research has linked creativity to improved mood and well-being.
BRAIN AGING MAY SLOW WITH GREEN TEA, WALNUTS AND TINY SWAMP PLANT, STUDY FINDS
“Creativity emerges as a powerful determinant of brain health, comparable to exercise or diet,” senior author Dr. Agustin Ibanez of Trinity College Dublin said in a statement. “Our results open new avenues for creativity-based interventions to protect the brain against aging and disease.”
Dr. Aneta Brzezicka of SWPS University added that the findings suggest that creative pastimes should be incorporated into educational and healthcare programs as tools to support brain health.
TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ
The study also showed that brain clocks, a relatively new tool gaining steam in neuroscience, can be used to monitor interventions aimed at improving brain health, Ibanez said.
Brain scans revealed that creative activities strengthen key neural networks involved in attention, coordination, movement and problem-solving. (iStock)
The researchers cautioned, however, that the results are early and come with caveats, including that most participants were healthy adults, many subgroups were small and the study didn’t track people long-term to see whether younger-looking brains actually lead to lower dementia risk or better daily functioning.
“The brain clock, in preliminary studies, shows promise and accounts for the diversity of the factors that can contribute to that wide disparity between our brain age and chronological age,” Dr. Jon Stewart Hao Dy, a board-certified adult neurologist from the Philippines, told Fox News Digital.
“However, it’s important for the public to know that brain health is influenced by a multitude of factors that cause a wide brain age gap,” added Dy, who was not involved in the study.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE LIFESTYLE STORIES
Creative people often have other advantages, the researchers noted, such as higher education, robust social lives and better access to arts and activities, and the study couldn’t fully separate those factors from the effects of creativity itself.
The new research suggests that picking up a new creative hobby at any age could help keep the brain healthier. (iStock)
“Evidence shows that dancing, painting, pottery, embroidery and even museum visits confer the greatest neuroprotection in preserving cognition and improving cognitive function in older adults,” Dy said.
And he agreed that the science is strong enough to justify action.
“It’s a matter of translating it into public policy that will fund and support these programs,” he said.
The work, funded by academic and public research bodies, will now be followed by more comprehensive studies that add other creative fields and link brain-age measures to real-world outcomes such as memory, thinking skills and disease risk.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the study authors for comment.
Are the San Francisco 49ers playing today? NFL Week 14 schedule, matchups, teams on a bye
Former Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks dies at 79
What Happened The Last Time Miami Visited Kyle Field?
Endangered whale that traveled 3,000 miles from Ireland spotted off Boston’s coast
From London to Denver: The Mile High City to host ‘DIVA’ exhibition
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Congress faces holiday crunch as health care fix collides with shrinking calendar
European Greens declare Usula von der Leyen`’s EPP enemy number one
National parks fee-free calendar drops MLK Day, Juneteenth and adds Trump’s birthday
Map: 7.0-Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Alaska
Hegseth hints major defense spending increase, reveals new details on Trump’s anti-narcoterrorism operations
-
Politics5 days agoTrump rips Somali community as federal agents reportedly eye Minnesota enforcement sweep
-
Ohio3 days agoWho do the Ohio State Buckeyes hire as the next offensive coordinator?
-
News5 days agoTrump threatens strikes on any country he claims makes drugs for US
-
World5 days agoHonduras election council member accuses colleague of ‘intimidation’
-
Texas1 day agoTexas Tech football vs BYU live updates, start time, TV channel for Big 12 title
-
Alaska1 day agoHowling Mat-Su winds leave thousands without power
-
Politics1 week agoRep. Swalwell’s suit alleges abuse of power, adds to scrutiny of Trump official’s mortgage probes
-
Politics5 days agoTrump highlights comments by ‘Obama sycophant’ Eric Holder, continues pressing Senate GOP to nix filibuster