Derek Humphry (1930 - 2025)

Anita Hannig is a Global Fellow in End-of-Life Care with The Completed Life Initiative & The Death with Dignity National Center. She shared news of the death of Derek Humphry, a towering figure in the history of MAID. Derek died on January 2, 2025, at the age of 94, from long-standing congestive heart failure. This is the obituary that she shared. 

Derek's contributions to the right-to-die movement are unparalleled. A British-born journalist (b. April 29, 1930), he rose to prominence in 1975 after helping his first wife Jean, who was suffering from terminal breast cancer, end her life. His candid memoir of that experience, Jean’s Way, became an international bestseller and set the stage for his lifetime of advocacy.

In 1980, after moving to California with his second wife, Ann Wickett, Derek co-founded the Hemlock Society, one of the earliest and most influential right-to-die organizations in the United States. Its dual mission of public education and legislative advocacy made it a catalyst for change. In 1991, his practical guide for patients, Final Exit, was on the NY Times Bestseller List for eighteen weeks, an indication of people’s discontent with the ways they might die. Final Exit’s success further advanced Derek’s activism and legacy.

Later, Derek co-founded the Final Exit Network and served as president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies from 1988 to 1990. In 2014, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the same organization for his decades of courageous advocacy. Derek spent his later years in Oregon with his third wife, Gretchen Crocker, in a quiet home outside Eugene, surrounded by the woods he loved.

Derek played a pivotal role in the development of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act in 1993, helping craft the pioneering statute that became a model for MAID legislation across the United States. His passionate stance on the ethical equality of euthanasia and self-administration, though not adopted by Oregon's law, underscored his commitment to a broader vision of end-of-life autonomy.

Derek's lifetime of work has left an indelible mark on the right-to-die movement, inspiring both legislative progress and continued advocacy. Here is Faye Girsh’s tribute to Derek in the Journal of Aid-in-Dying Medicine: