Euthanasia Billboards, Books Fight for Death on Your Own Terms

July 19, 2010— -- Mixed in among the billboards for radio stations and fast food restaurants are controversial roadside ads appealing to the seriously ill who want help in committing suicide.

Emblazoned with the slogan "My Life. My Death. My Choice," the black billboards placed in San Francisco and New Jersey are part of a larger campaign by the Final Exit Network to spur discussion and raise awareness of what it considers the inalienable right to die with dignity.

While many right-to-die advocates argue for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, Final Exit Network offers "exit guidance" to those who wish to take their death into their own hands, with or without a physician's help.

"We thought [the billboards] were a great way to get different communities talking about the issue. We believe that the ultimate human rights issue of the 21st century is the right to die," says Frank Kavanaugh, Final Exit's spokesman.

The campaign began last month with billboards in San Francisco and New Jersey. The organization plans to put billboards in Florida later this summer and hopes to expand the campaign to other states as well, Kavanaugh says.

Final Exit Network's philosophy is soon to get even more exposure, thanks to an anonymous $50,000 deathbed donation to the like-minded Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization, headed by Derek Humphry, who founded the assisted-suicide movement in the U.S. and wrote "Final Exit," a do-it-yourself guide to assisted suicide.

The $50,000 donation was made with the express purpose of supplying as many public libraries as possible with Humphry's book. So far, 2,000 copies of "Final Exit" have been sent to libraries around the country.

"No library has not wanted to carry the book. We've been getting thank-you letters," Humphry says.

"Final Exit" offers advice on the many issues surrounding assisted suicide -- how to do it without a physician, how to do it while not breaking the law, how to prepare your loved ones for it, even what to include in a suicide note.

Though Humphry did not know the person who gave the $50,000, the gift was the donor's "final act," presumably before he used "Final Exit" himself, says Humphry.