Page 8 - ARUBA TODAY

A8 WORLD NEWS
Friday 11 May 2018
Australian, 104, dies in assisted suicide in Switzerland

By PHILIPP JENNE,
Associated Press
LIESTAL, Switzerland (AP) —
A 104-year-old Australian
biologist who drew interna-
tional attention to his right-
to-die case ended his life in
Switzerland on Thursday, an
advocacy group said.
Exit International, the group
that helped David Good-
all carry out his wish, said
the scientist was declared
dead at 12:30 p.m. in Li-
estal, a town outside the
city of Basel, where he had
traveled to take advan-
tage of Switzerland’s assist-
ed-suicide laws.
“My life has been rather
poor for the last year or so.
And I’m very happy to end
it,” Goodall said Thursday
in the room where he died
shortly after.
The British-born scientist said
this week that he had been
contemplating the idea of
suicide for about 20 years, Picture shows 104-year-old Australian David Goodall in a room in Liestal near Basel, Switzerland, where he plans to end his life on
but only started thinking Thursday, May 10, 2018.
about it for himself after his Associated Press
quality of life deteriorated reserved for the terminally some far more frail than the solution to flow, Exit In- sprinkled locally.
over the last year. ill. Goodall and his support- Goodall, who used a ternational said. “He wishes to have no fu-
He cited a lack of mobility, ers want the practice to be wheelchair — travel to Swit- “He answered those ques- neral, no remembrance
doctor’s restrictions and an more accepted as a le- zerland every year to take tions with great clarity, ac- service or ceremony,” the
Australian law prohibiting gitimate choice for elderly their lives. The best-known tivated the process” while group said in a statement.
him from taking his own life people in sound mind. group to help foreigners Beethoven’s Ninth Sym- “David has no belief in the
among his complaints, but On Wednesday, Goodall end their days in the Alpine phony played in the back- afterlife.”
he was not ill. told a crowded news con- country is Dignitas, but oth- ground, he added. The Swiss federal statistics
Assisted suicide is legal in ference that medically as- ers include Life Circle in Ba- His last words before losing office says the number of
Switzerland, where the pro- sisted suicide should be sel, Goodall’s choice. consciousness were “this assisted suicides has been
cedure is available for any- more widely available. Goodall took his life with an is taking an awfully long growing fast: Nine years
one who acknowledges in “At my age, and even at intravenous drip of pento- time,” Nitschke said, but ago, there were 297. By
writing that they are taking rather less than my age, barbital, a chemical often “he died shortly thereaf- 2015, the most recent year
their lives willingly — with- one wants to be free to used as an anesthetic but ter.” tabulated, the figure had
out being forced. But the choose the death and which is lethal in excessive Exit International said more than tripled to 965.
practice is frowned upon when the death is the ap- doses. A doctor put a can- Goodall had requested Nearly 15 percent of the
by many doctors and some propriate time,” he said. nula in his arm, and Good- that his body be donated cases last year were peo-
others who say it should be Hundreds of people — all turned a wheel to allow to medicine, or his ashes ple under 65 years old.q