Final Exit

Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying, is a controversial 1991 book by Derek Humphry, a newspaper reporter and author whose wife Jean ended her life with an intentional overdose of medication after a long and painful decline from terminal cancer. Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society in California and past president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, wrote the book as a how-to guide for terminally ill people who wish to end their lives. The controversy arises not only from the intense debate over whether a person has a right to end their own life, and whether anyone, especially medical professionals, can ethically assist self-chosen euthanasia, but also because the information in the book can be used by anyone, not just the terminally ill.

Final Exit covers many aspects of planning and carrying out "self-deliverance", from the decision of whether and when one is ready to die, to the careful protection of anyone assisting one's preparations, to the legal and financial preparations for those one leaves behind. But the bulk of the work consists of the advantages and disadvantages and the processes for a variety of suicide methods.

Final Exit has been translated into 12 languages, but is banned by law only in France.

In April 2007 the editors and book critics of the American national newspaper USA TODAY selected Final Exit as one of the 25 most memorable books of the last quarter century.

Humphry subsequently put the information in this book onto a VHS video (2000) and a DVD (2006) available through ERGO.