David Goodall: Scientist, 104, begins trip to end his life - Sensationalist Headlines

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-43957874 Perhaps if people had treated him like a regular guy but a bit older, he wouldn't have to do it.

Well, it's not just that he's "a regular guy who's a bit older," he's entering those frustrating twilight years where you lose your ability to function on your own, and may continue to live well in to those years. I had a Grand-Aunt who lived to 102, and died this past year of natural causes. Her husband died about 40 years prior to her. 30 years ago, sometime in her 80's, she lost the ability to safely walk on her own as her bones degenerated. Since then she was either assisted by a home-care nurse or one of her daughters. Around that time she stopped leaving her apartment. When she had a heart attack 5 years ago, she suffered an extreme nervous breakdown when she went outside for the first time in some 25 years. A quarter of a century. The lifetime of most people here. That episode also marked the beginning of her loss of sense. It was never formally diagnosed as any particular senility to my knowledge, but although she retained a memory of things she was losing sense of when she was. Around the time of her heart attack she was also diagnosed with "total organ failure," and not expected to live 6 more months. And she just kept living. And living. For five years. I recall the last conversation I had with her. She had recounted a lot of stories I'd heard before, of her husband, of how the city used to be, of her youth. I was with my not-Grand-Aunt, her niece. She paused in the middle of a story about her husband, drew herself up as if she realized she'd been daydreaming then said very clearly to the both of us, "you know, I've had a good life, I'd very much like to die. I pray to God for it every night, and I hope it will be soon." The rest of the visit continued as expected after that. Stories, tea, goodbye-take-care-I-hope-you-meet-a-nice-girl-soon. (I didn't have the heart to ever tell her I was engaged to my husband now, it would've probably been a bit alien for someone over the century-mark.) But I did carry that notion away from it. That, as far as she was concerned, she was done with life. She was quite ready to kick it, and it just wasn't fair that she had to keep living. She didn't ask for any of it, she just lived. Helpless and healthy and counting the days until she would be reunited in Heaven with her husband again. As for the article: This guy was forced to resign from his post. This guy fell and was helpless in his own apartment for two days. This guy was facing a seemingly overnight transformation from being a quirky, well-accomplished capital-I Intellectual to a helpless husk of a man cut off from the friends, colleagues and even world that he's lived in for over a century. Growing up I was always told (because my family were snobbish and superstitious about the influence of videogames) that life doesn't have a Restart Button. Life does have a Quit button though, and I feel that this man has earned the right to press it.

Victoria recently passed laws to legalise euthanasia but they've (firstly) put a two year wait on it while they have "discussions" about the matter with doctors, secondly they've restricted it to people who are terminally ill with less than 12 months to live (so old and having a poor quality of life does not count) and thirdly they've made it into a bureaucratic nightmare.

I hope in the future we have it so people can do Assisted Suicide for situations like this. I am scared of getting old and being helpless, having to rely on strangers to wipe my shitty ass. It would help me sleep better at night knowing that if life gets shit when I am 80+, I can just end it.

So wait. If you're terminally ill with 12 months to live, you still have to wait 2 years? I mean. That's a way to give people a reason to fight their illness, i guess.

The bill recieved royal assent but they're not implementing the procedures for euthanasia for 2 years.

if you are over the age of 70 you should legally be able to request and obtain euthanasia with no questions asked

70 seems a bit low, to be honest.

It shouldn't be exceedingly difficult, but "no questions asked" is way too quick and prone to abuse You want some kind of checks so it's not a thing someone does as an impulse, due to pressure, or when they're perfectly healthy.

There's something comforting about the idea that the older you get the more embrace the idea of dying. Like, right now I'm horrified at the idea and I'll take huge measures to not take idiotic risks that could endanger my life, but who knows what my thoughts on that will be 70 years from now.

Why bother going to Switzerland to die when there are easy and painless ways to commit suicide cleanly at home?

i don't think your health should matter past a certain age. of course, people with terminal illnesses should be allowed to choose self-termination rather than let the illness painfully murder you, no matter the age. but getting old in itself is, in a way, a terminal illness. 70 seems the right age where you likely still have all your faculties about you and the capacity to recognize you aren't going to get any better. after seeing my grandma and grandpa wither away due to age, i don't ever want to be that old. i would rather blow my head off with a shotgun while i can still hold it than get so old that picking up a cup of water takes all my strength.

I know this probably sounds cold as fuck, but what exactly is stopping him from slitting his own wrists or drinking a bunch of vodka and downing a bottle of sleeping pills or something?

You seriously have to ask that question? For starters, you have to physically cut yourself open which is going to hurt. Then you're leaving your corpse unattended until someone else finds it and has to deal with it. And in both cases of bleeding out or overdosing, you could still fuck up either of them and not actually die, then you went through all that pain and trouble and now have burdened your family even more.

When I get to that kind of age its going to be augmentations out the wazoo or atleast a powered exoskeleton. I will not be caged in a dingy apartment for 10 years waiting for death to come knock.

it's not exactly like it's easy to build up the courage to kill yourself. its not like the guy is suicidal, he simply wants to end his life. it seriously takes a lot of guts and inner pain to even get to the point where you can consciously decide to take your own life, and go through with it. most people who try/do it are already far past the end of their rope. not to mention, what exactly do you expect to happen to the body? do you think he wants to be a rotting corpse in a room? do you want him to walk into an emergency room and swallow a bunch of pills so they can haul his corpse to the morgue?

Well, are they clean, non-dramatic and can you be sure that you won't wake up? Maybe my imagination is just bad, but I can't really come up with any.

Thanks for sharing such a heartwrenching story. I buried my uncle less than two months ago, and during the funeral my grandmother said to me it should've been her in that urn. He was about 54, I can't remember exactly because it was his birthday two days after he died and I can't bring myself to look it up and see his face again, at least not right now. Anyways, she's 84 and I hope she'll stay with us with her current health for as long as possible, she's an incredible woman. It's such a difficult subject and when I see what it does to close family I can understand why approval has to come from doctors that aren't emotionally associated.