A 104-year-old Australian scientist travelled to Switzerland to end his life, died with the help of assisted suicide on Thursday. Exit International, the group that helped David Goodall said that his time of death was 12:30 PM. He travelled to Switzerland to take advantage of their assisted-suicide laws.
“My life has been rather poor for the last year or so. And I’m very happy to end it,” Goodall said on Thursday in the room where he died shortly after, reported The Times of India.
The scientist said that he was giving thought to suicide for over 20 years. He started to think about suicide for himself last year when his quality of life deteriorated. He had no physical ailments. His problems – doctor’s restriction, lack of mobility and Australia’s law prohibiting him from committing suicide.
Goodall was given intravenous drip of pentobarbital, a chemical often used as an anaesthetic but in more doses, it can be lethal. Philip Nitschke, director of Exit International, said that before activating the drip, Goodall had to answer “several questions so he knew who he was, where he was and what he was about to do.”
“He answered those questions with great clarity, activated the process” while Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony played in the background, he added.
Before dying his last words were “it’s taking awfully long.” He died shortly after. Exit International said Goodall had requested that his body is donated to medicine, or his ashes sprinkled locally. “He wishes to have no funeral, no remembrance service or ceremony,” the group said in a statement. “David has no belief in the afterlife.”
Assisted suicide
Every year many people go to Switzerland to commit assisted suicide. It is available to anyone who gives in writing that they want to end their lives without being forced. Many doctors frown upon this practice and say that this should only be made available to terminally-ill patients.
