104 year old Australian Scientist David Goodall ends his Life
David Goodall, Australia’s oldest scientist, has ended his own life at the age of 104.
According to The Guardian,
Goodall ate fish and chips and cheesecake and listened to Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony (Ode to Joy) in the moments before his death.
The
scientist had traveled from Perth, Australia (where it is against the
law to end one’s life) to Switzerland to carry out the procedure.
The botanist traveled to France last week to see relatives before arriving at a clinic in Liestal, near Basel.
Although
he was not terminally ill, Goodall said his eyesight and movement had
deteriorated and his life stopped being enjoyable “five or 10 years
ago”.
Dr Philip Nitschke, the founder of the Australian right-to-die group Exit International,
who accompanied Goodall to the Swiss hospital, said Goodall, “after
answering questions which said he knew who he was, where he was and what
he was about to do… with great clarity,” turned a wheel that allowed a
lethal dose of sleeping drug Nembutal go into his blood stream.
Goodall
has been campaigning for assisted dying in Australia, and according to
Nitschke, was frustrated by the formalities leading up to his death. “In
fact his last words were: ‘This is taking an awfully long time!’”
Nitschke said.
Goodall, while he was alive, had said: “What I
would like is for other countries to follow Switzerland’s lead and make
these facilities available to all clients, if they meet the
requirements, and the requirements not just of age, but of mental
capacity.”
Goodall was an honorary research associate at Edith
Cowan University in Perth, and was the editor-in-chief of the
multi-volume Ecosystems of the World in 1979.
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