If asked how they would like their death to come about, many people say that when the time comes -- hopefully a long time down the road, they quickly add -- they would like to peacefully pass away in their own bed, at home, surrounded by their loved ones. Unfortunately, these tranquil passings are no longer common in these days of high-technology medicine.

Now, 90% of Americans spend their last weeks or months on Earth in nursing homes, hospices, or in hospitals. Often hooked up to life support equipment they do not want, many experience unrelenting, unrelieveable pain which palliative care cannot overcome. Many live out their last days in complete isolation from their friends and family. Most of them would strongly prefer to choose a certain and painless way to depart their life on their own terms and schedule, while they are still rational and have sufficient physical and mental capacity to do so. But most state and national laws make that impossible. The members of a large, active, rapidly-growing group of loosely-affiliated organizations around the world are working to change that. This book explores the lives, ideals, and goals of the founders, leaders, and millions of members of the death-with-dignity movement worldwide, and their fight for the right of anyone, anyplace, to die with dignity.

In Search of Gentle Death explores the rapid evolution and accelerating growth of the modern death-with-dignity movement in the United States and abroad between 1975 and the present. As Derek Humphry, founder of The Hemlock Society and author of Final Exit said, the movement seeks to help bring about the peaceful end of life "for persons when dying, trapped in a ruined body, or just plain terminally old, fragile, and tired of life." There is rising criticism that keeping dying people alive against their will is a violation of their civil rights. Humphrey feels strongly that "Life should not be a sentence. The freedom to die in the manner of our own choosing is the ultimate civil liberty." Based upon recent polls in the Western world, about 75% of the public--and over half of their physicians--agree with the concept.

Driven by public demand for legal change and an increasing public awareness of intolerable suffering being rigidly enforced by government policies and religious officials, a vigorous grassroots international death-with-dignity movement started flourishing in the mid-1970s. It fights to establish euthanasia (Greek for "good death") and the right to die at the time and place of one's own choosing as a fundamental human right, rather than a privilege subject to the arbitrary judgments or the imposition of the will of politicians, lawyers, religious leaders, or the medical establishment.

Opinions about self-deliverance and physician-hastened-death vary greatly from country to country. But in the United States, Canada, and most Western European nations, a strong majority of the people have stated their support for laws which would enable them to legally choose how, when, and where they die, including by physician-hastened death. Switzerland (1942), The Netherlands (2002), Belgium (2002), and Luxembourg (2009), as well as the U.S. states of Oregon (1994), Washington (2008) and Montana (2008) have already legalized euthanasia or physician-hastened death for rational adults.

On the other hand, suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia are opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, a majority of conservative Christian denominations, and some disability rights groups. In the face of their well-organized and vocal opposition, lawmakers worldwide have shown great reluctance to pass laws permitting the terminally ill to hasten their own deaths, even though a majority of their constituents endorse such laws.

In Search of Gentle Death will break precedent with all previous books about this subject in three key areas. Earlier works focused chiefly on the ethical, religious, and medical viewpoints. While giving those topics full consideration, In Search of Gentle Death will tell its story by spotlighting the intensely personal and painful end-of-life crises which drove about twenty key people to create what is now the international right-to-die movement.

The book will also explore for the first time the role of "exit counselors," a new breed of knowledgeable volunteer guides who provide personal counseling, technical advice, emotional support and their personal presence if and when these people do end their lives. In addition, it will examine the origins, workings, and accomplishments of the NuTech Group, a small, intensely private affiliation of physicians, scientists, and self-deliverance experts who first assembled in 1999. They are dedicated to a single goal: developing methods of self-deliverance that are legal, painless, easy to use, reliable, inexpensive, present no hazard to others, and do not require the assistance or permission of any second party to use.

In Search of Gentle Death will be drawn from insightful new interviews worldwide by the author with the movement's leaders -- and their most vociferous opponents. Unlike some pro- or anti-euthanasia books, this non-partisan volume will accord all parties and their beliefs the respect to which they are entitled. The highly readable book will contain numerous illustrations, tables, an extensive bibliography, and a comprehensive index. It will be published in 2011. And best of all, it will be available not only in hardcover and softcover editions in the U.S., but also by download worldwide in multimedia eBook formats for the Kindle, iPad, and smartphones.