Final Exit Network

Ensuring Death with Dignity

Our Guiding Principles

We hold that mentally competent adults have a basic human right to end their lives under the following conditions:

• they suffer from a fatal or irreversible illness or intractable pain,
• they judge that their quality of life is unacceptable to them,
• they judge that their future is hopeless.

This right by its nature implies that the ending of one’s life is one’s choice, including the timing and persons present, and should be free of any restrictions by the law, clergy, medical profession, etc.       We do not encourage anyone to end their life,  are opposed to anyone’s encouraging another to end his life,  do not provide the means to do so, and do not actively assist in a person’s death.   We do, however, support any member who requests it when they meet our official, written criteria.

Our Mission

• To work toward obtaining the basic human right of competent adults, who are suffering from irreversible illness or intractable pain and who no longer want to live, to be able to end their lives on their own terms.
• To raise the awareness of all Americans concerning this basic human right.
• To offer free service to all who qualify, providing relevant information, home visits if possible and compassionate counseling for individual and family.
• To promote the use of advance directives and other related legal instruments to document the intentions of any individual.
• To sponsor research into new peaceful and reliable methods to end life.
• To vigorously defend our guiding principles in a court of law when necessary.