Plain black billboards reading "My Life My Death My Choice FinalExitNetwork.org" are being placed by Final Exit Network, claiming to help people with the pain of incurable illness.
-- from "National campaign guiding ill adults to end lives advertises on Hillside billboard" by Steve Strunsky, New Jersey Star-Ledger 7/14/10
The [New Jersey] billboard, along with one in San Francisco and another planned for Florida, anchor a national campaign by the network to raise awareness of itself and its mission. Members say the locations were chosen for their reputations as socially progressive and, in Florida’s case, for its elderly population.
Jim Goodness, a spokesman for the [Catholic Church] Archdiocese of Newark, said the message "cannot be condoned."
Therapists called the billboard "irresponsible," arguing it could serve as a "tipping point" for troubled teens or others at risk of suicide.
The network does not advocate physician-assisted suicide . . . Instead, it recommends suffocation by donning an air-tight hood and inhaling helium pumped in through a tube.
Thomas E. Goodwin, a physician who founded the network in Florida in 2004, is facing criminal charges of violating Georgia’s law against assisted suicide in the 2008 death of a 58-year-old man at his home near Atlanta. Network members face similar charges in Arizona. New Jersey also prohibits assisted suicide.
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