How to Get the Death You Want

This is a comprehensive manual with for anybody reaching the end of life, and for their caring friends, relatives, advocates, and caretakers. The author, an Episcopal Priest, describes in detail the formidable challenges faced by those who wish to avoid months or years of painful treatment after they no longer have any hope of recovering any reasonable quality of life. 

Abraham is acive with numerous end-of-life organizations, most notably the Final Exit Network (FEN), serving as leader of the Arizona chapter. In the book he covers the practical and moral issues involved with making one's choices  about medical care and minimizing the suffering and pain. He emphasizes that everybody must make their own decisions, consistent with their religious or moral beliefs, but that those who wish to determine the timing of thier own deaths wit a pain-free method (ranging from stopping eating to the quicker method with helium) they have a right to do so.

The book carries strong endorsements from a number of well-known authorities on death, dying, grief, and mourning, including Rabbi Earl A. Grollman, the autor of numerous best-selling books on death and grieving, and Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society and author of Final Exit.

John Abraham of Tuscon, AZ

An Episcopal priest and thanatologist, John Abraham has spent most of his adult life as a pioneer in the fields of grief therapy, hospice, death education, and, more controversially, the right-to-die movement.

This book is a product of those years of experience. Rabbi Earl A. Grollman, perhaps America’s best-known authority of death education and grief therapy, comments that “Whatever your opinions on the right-to-die movement, this is a book you must have in your library.”

Abraham is also well-known for his sometimes unconventional sense of humor; perhaps personified by the his cover photo, standing next to his coffin, which serves as a bookcase pending its future use. His wit makes it easier for people to become educated on a serious subject, to be better prepared for their own eventual deaths and to advocate for their loved ones at the end of life.