The Hemlock Society's primary mission included providing information to the dying and supporting legislation permitting physician-assisted suicide.
Though he was sentenced to be executed, Socrates could have escaped into exile, but nevertheless chose death, an act seen as dignified and noble by many supporters of assisted suicide.
[citation needed] Earlier right-to-die advocacy organizations included the Euthanasia Educational Council founded in 1967, changing its name to Concern for Dying in 1978.
He decided to start the Hemlock Society in an effort to campaign for a change in law and educate the terminally ill on assisted suicide and its methods.
Initially started in Humphry's garage in Santa Monica, California, the group eventually moved to Eugene, Oregon, and had many other homes.
[citation needed] The Society backed legislative efforts in California, Washington, Michigan, and Maine without success until the Oregon Death with Dignity Act was passed on October 27, 1997.
[citation needed] Past Hemlock Society USA presidents included Gerald A. Larue, Derek Humphry, Sidney D. Rosoff, Wiley Morrison, Arthur Metcalfe, John Westover, Faye J. Girsh.
[citation needed] In the 2010 television film You Don’t Know Jack, which dramatizes the activism of former Oakland County, Michigan pathologist Jack Kevorkian, fellow activist Janet Good (played by Susan Sarandon) meets Kevorkian (played by Al Pacino) during a meeting of the eastern Michigan chapter of the Hemlock Society which Good has organized.