Right-to-Die Movement Gaining, ‘Final Exit’ Author Says : Suicide: Doctors’ opposition to assisting in deaths of the terminally ill is diminishing, Leisure World supporters are told.

LAGUNA HILLS —  The pendulum is now swinging in favor of the right-to-die movement, Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society and author of a controversial suicide manual, told an overflow crowd of elderly Leisure World supporters on Sunday.

“Up until last year, (doctors) were saying, ‘No, no, we can’t have this.’ Now they’re saying, ‘Perhaps we’d better start talking about this,’ ” Humphry told the group. “The tone of the debate has changed.”

Most of the standing-room-only crowd listened with sympathy and good humor, saying they have seen others of their generation pained, impoverished or diminished by efforts to prolong their lives during terminal illness.

“This is a reality we must face,” said Ray Nelson, 71. “We accept that we are mortal. But we are mortally afraid of dying in extreme pain, or alone and undiscovered. These things happen. Even in Leisure World.”

Despite the defeat of a Washington state initiative that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide, Humphry, 61, called last year a “watershed” year for reversing public opinion. He noted, for example, that:

* A grand jury refused to indict Dr. Timothy Quill, a Rochester, N.Y., physician who admitted in a medical journal article that he helped a dying patient commit suicide.

* A Michigan jury acquitted Robert Harper, a Sacramento man who mistakenly believed that he could help his terminally ill wife kill herself without facing trial.

* An initiative movement in California is trying to place a “Death With Dignity Act” on the state ballot in November.

Humphry also noted the success of his book, “Final Exit,” published by the Hemlock Society, a national organization promoting physician-assisted suicide. The book has sold more than 500,000 copies and is being reprinted in several languages.

Last year, “Final Exit” sold out twice at Waldenbooks in the Laguna Hills Mall near Leisure World. Bookseller Wayne Stoller said that it sold surprisingly well as a “Christmas item” but that he received a few calls from worried people who had heard that their parents were ordering the book. They begged clerks not to sell their relatives the book, which has chapter titles such as “Self-Starvation,” “Storing Drugs,” and “Self-Deliverance Via the Plastic Bag.”

While it is illegal in California to assist in a suicide, Humphry said no one in California has ever served prison time for the crime. The law is widely broken by individuals and sympathetic doctors, he said.

One retired doctor and Leisure World resident, Ben Mandelstam, 84, agreed with Humphry that “a great many” local doctors are covertly helping the terminally ill commit suicide by prescribing lethal doses of pain pills with an ersatz warning: “You know, too much of this will kill you.”

Humphry said one problem with the Washington initiative was the lack of protection against possible abuses by doctors who might overstep their bounds in assisting mercy killings.

The California initiative, now being circulated by Californians Against Human Suffering, calls for a waiting period between the request for death and the suicide, a method of informing relatives of the request, a possible psychological evaluation with the patient’s consent, and required reporting by doctors.

After his speech, one resident told Humphry that he opposes informing families. “I can’t see why families should need to be informed,” he said. “It’s up to the individual. Often they don’t understand or are opposed.” The elderly man, who did not identify himself, said one of his own family members would have opposed the successful “final exit” of another relative last year, if the person had known about it.

“You talk about pain,” said a woman who identified herself as a member of the Hemlock Society and said she is caring for her husband, who has Alzheimer’s disease. “What about a shell you’re taking care of for years and years?”

Another woman asked Humphry, “What do you say to a doctor who says, ‘I’m a healer, not a killer?’ ”

“Say goodby,” Humphry replied, to a roomful of chuckles.

Humphry acknowledged that his main opposition comes from the Roman Catholic Church. However, he noted that other religious groups support the movement, including the Unitarian Church, the United Church of Christ and some Methodists.

No one during the talk questioned Humphry on the death this year of his ex-wife, Ann, a co-founder of the Hemlock Society who committed suicide. She had been found to have cancer.

Humphry later declined to discuss her death, although previously he had described her as having an unstable personality. However, friends said that she left a note blaming him and that she talked about the subtle pressures she felt, as a cancer victim and a member of the society, to commit suicide.

One Leisure World resident, Jack Kabat, 82, said: “I don’t care about his personal life. We’re talking about ideas here. . . .

“There is something primitive in our society that doesn’t permit an individual in an incapacitated state to die with dignity.”