Death Wish

The Dark Dealings of the Misnamed "Compassion & Choices"

Background

Former London Sunday Times reporter Derek Humphry founded the Hemlock Society in his garage in Santa Monica, California, in 1980, five years after helping his first wife Jean to die. From 1980 to 1992, he built it into a national organization, but by 1996 it had fractured into nine disparate factions "rarely speaking to each other." In 2005, two of the four still standing merged and took the name Compassion & Choices.

Compassion & Choices identifies itself as "the leading nonprofit organization committed to helping everyone have the best death possible." Its work is twofold: (1) political—advancing legislation, judicial rulings, and public support...