The book, FINAL EXIT, is a manual for committing suicide or helping someone  else to do so. It sold out its first of 41,000 copies and will top next week’s list of how to and advice bestsellers in the New York Times. The volume explains, step by step, how to end a human life; it includes charts for lethal dosages for 18 prescription drugs, primarily pain killers and sleeping tablets; it debates and debunks the merits of cyanide; it offers abundant practical advice about asphyxiation by plastic bag or auto haust.

Even more jarring to critics, the book exhorts doctors and nurses actively to abet the “self deliverance” of the terminally ill. Author Derek Humphry contends that such assistance is common but tacit. “ Part of good medicine is to help you out of this life as well as help you in,” he argues. When a cure is no longer possible and the patient seeks relief through euthanasia, the help of a physician is most  appropriate.

(1) Do you think the government should permit sales of Final Exit?
(2) Do you think this book encourages suicide by normal people, or is it just good guidance for the terminally ill?
(3) If you were a bookstore owner, would you sell this book?
(4) If your friends or family members asked you to buy the book for them, what would you do?