UU Church Hosts Final Exit Network May 22

Staff Reports

The Final Exit Network of the Blue Ridge Mountains will hold a public meeting on May 22, 2011 at 2 p.m. in the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville, 1 Edwin Place off Charlotte Street. Guest speaker Dr. Jerry Metz is the Medical Director and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the national Final Exit Network. The meeting is free and open to the public.

Dr. Metz will speak on history of the right-to-die movement and Final Exit Network’s place in it as well as give an update on the FEN geriatric volunteers who were arrested in Georgia and Arizona, related legal battles, and the impact of those legal encounters on Final Exit Network. He will also share stories of tragedy and suffering on the part of those who sought relief from terminal illness and sought assistance from FEN.

Dr. Metz graduated from the University of Rochester medical school in
1961. After internship and a year of general surgery he joined the Army
as a flight surgeon during the Cuban missile crisis. He was stationed
at Fort Campbell, KY, where his office was on the same corridor as the
eye, ear, nose and throat clinic. After he “fell in love with
ophthalmology,” he trained in New York City and then settled in Bangor,
Maine, where he practiced for almost thirty years.

In retirement he settled for a while in Asheville teaching
English as a Second Language at A-B Tech and then worked as an
English-Spanish interpreter at Mission St. Joseph Hospital.

He has since moved back to Maine to live near a small fishing
village. “Since my return,” he says, “I’ve had to ‘put down’ four dogs
because of medical problems. We do this to our beloved pets and call it
humane but we deny that kind of compassion to our fellow human beings.”

The meeting is free and open to the public. For more information about FEN
contact Jackie Simms, President, Final Exit Network of the Blue Ridge Mountains, at (828) 687-7759.