LIESTAL, Switzerland (AP) \u2014 A 104-year-old Australian biologist who drew international attention to his right-to-die case ended his life in Switzerland on Thursday, an advocacy group said.<\/p>\n
Exit International, the group that helped David Goodall carry out his wish, said the scientist was declared dead at 12:30 p.m. in Liestal, a town outside the city of Basel, where he had traveled to take advantage of Switzerland\u2019s assisted-suicide laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy life has been rather poor for the last year or so. And I\u2019m very happy to end it,\u201d Goodall said Thursday in the room where he died shortly after.<\/p>\n
The British-born scientist said this week that he had been contemplating the idea of suicide for about 20 years, but only started thinking about it for himself after his quality of life deteriorated over the last year.<\/p>\n
![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.peacefulpillhandbook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/David-Goodall-Final-Farewell-620x343.jpg\" "\\"David")
Philip Nitschke and David Goodall in Basel Switzerland<\/p><\/div>\n
David cited a lack of mobility, doctor\u2019s restrictions and an Australian law prohibiting him from taking his own life among his complaints, but he was not ill.<\/p>\n
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, where the procedure is available for anyone who acknowledges in writing that they are taking their lives willingly \u2014 without being forced. But the practice is frowned upon by many doctors and some others who say it should be reserved for the terminally ill. Goodall and his supporters want the practice to be more accepted as a legitimate choice for elderly people in sound mind.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Goodall told a crowded news conference that medically assisted suicide should be more widely available.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt my age, and even at rather less than my age, one wants to be free to choose the death and when the death is the appropriate time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people \u2014 some far more frail than Goodall, who used a wheelchair \u2014 travel to Switzerland every year to take their lives. The best-known group to help foreigners end their days in the Alpine country is Dignitas, but others include Life Circle in Basel, Goodall\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n
Goodall took his life with an intravenous drip of pentobarbital, a chemical often used as an anesthetic but which is lethal in excessive doses. A doctor put a cannula in his arm, and Goodall turned a wheel to allow the solution to flow, Exit International said.<\/p>\n
Philip Nitschke, director of Exit International, said that before activating the drip, Goodall had to answer \u201cseveral questions so he knew who he was, where he was and what he was about to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe answered those questions with great clarity, activated the process\u201d while Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony played in the background, he added.<\/p>\n
His last words before losing consciousness were \u201cthis is taking an awfully long time,\u201d Nitschke said, but \u201che died shortly thereafter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exit International said Goodall had requested that his body be donated to medicine, or his ashes sprinkled locally.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wishes to have no funeral, no remembrance service or ceremony,\u201d the group said in a statement. \u201cDavid has no belief in the afterlife.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Swiss federal statistics office says the number of assisted suicides has been growing fast: Nine years ago, there were 297. By 2015, the most recent year tabulated, the figure had more than tripled to 965. Nearly 15 percent of the cases last year were people under 65 years old.<\/p>\n
Editor’s Note: David Goodall received an assisted suicide in Switzerland with the same team of professionals who have since founded the Pegasos Swiss Association<\/a> in the same building in Liestal, outside of Basel. <\/em><\/p>\n