David Goodall has fulfilled his final wish and taken his life through assisted suicide in a Swiss clinic, in a powerful statement in favour of voluntary euthanasia.
The story of the 104-year-old Perth academic, who is one of the first Australians to undertake the procedure due to old age rather than a terminal illness, has attracted international headlines and further inflamed a highly divisive debate.
His supporters applauded his decision to take charge of his fate after declaring his life was no longer worth living.
But critics warned his decision to end his life solely on the grounds of old age set a dangerous precedent
www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-10/david-goodall-ends-life-in-a-powerful-statement-on-euthanasia/9742528
I have to say fuck the AMA. They are such utter hypocrites, doing their best to stifle debate and block euthanasia reform while many of their members are performing euthanasia behind closed doors.
Why do critics think it sets a dangerous precedent? Do they think that now everyone that hits 104 is going to be put down against their will or something. What rubbish.
I honestly wouldn't want to live to 104 so props too the guy for doing what he wants.
Good on him. Old age and terminal sickness sucks. There is no reason why someone of sound mind should not be able to end their life on their own terms.
To quote the article:
"In many quarters we see the planned suicide of someone who's aged 100 celebrated," Dr Gannon said. "That concerns me.
"What is the age at which we no longer celebrate people continuing life?"
Dr Gannon said he was also deeply concerned with the reasoning Dr Goodall had expressed around his decision.
"People like Dr Goodall make a decision based on nothing more than they've decided there's nothing more to live for," he said.
""I have serious concerns about a community where we make arbitrary decisions about whose life is valuable enough to continue and whose should be ended under the law.
"A society should aspire to look after people who are struggling and to make sure that their lives are worth living.
"We should aspire to even better end-of-life care. We should aspire to better palliative care.""
Except it's not "we" as a community making the decision, it's the individual. There is no implied grey area or slippery slope here; one is abuse and the other is empowerment.
Outliving everyone you know, friends or family, is a cruel fate.
Living past 100 and then deciding living this old is just not worth it is such a fucking power move I don't think I would want to go any other way.
I like how we're made to believe we can live our lives in certain ways, but if we choose not to live, whoa no too far, can't allow you to have that much control over your own life.
To be perfectly fair, it's definitely unusual for someone to want to kill themselves and actually have a valid reason. It's kind of extremely counter-intuitive to want to end your life when most of your bodily and mental functions are designed around accomplishing the exact opposite, so it makes sense people would instinctively act protective to some extent towards people who want to end it all.
There's definitely some cases such as this one where there's a totally warranted reason for wanting to die but I'm fairly certain there's far more cases out there of people who are irrationally suicidal as a result of intense depression.
People as they get older tend to cling onto whatever life they've got left. Old people generally do not want to die. You'll see when you become 100 and are still kicking around.
I think euthanasia can save a lot of family members a lot of trouble in not having to see their terminally ill relative drop all the way down to 80 pounds.
I prefer thinking logically in this situation and any situation that presents itself that's similar, I mean the guy was 104, even 90+ is pretty old, you shouldn't have the choice of not wanting to live to be taken from you when it comes down to your age, obviously when you're young, seek psychological help, but when you're old, like 90+, it should at least be an option that doesn't have a million obstacles , just go through mental health checks and what not, make sure they're being serious about their choice.
Unless they have like Dementia or something, don't really know what to do then.
David’s case is most certainly understandable. The reason why he pushed for this assisted suicide, aside from having already led a fulfilling life with not much else to experie CD, is that he had an accident 2 years ago where he fell over, and because he didn’t have any strength in him (due to old age) to lift himself up or call for help, he had to lay on the ground of his own home in pain, and alone, for two days until a cleaner found him.
Good on him for fulfilling his wish. It’s a damn shame that he was not afforded the dignity of doing this in his home country.
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