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Right-To-Die Advocate David Goodall Ends Life Listening To 'Ode To Joy'

The Australian scientist and botanist died at an assisted-dying clinic in Switzerland.
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By 

Religion Reporter, HuffPost

Australian scientist and right-to-die advocate David Goodall chose to end his life with a lethal injection on Thursday. He was 104.

Goodall died at a clinic in Switzerland while listening to the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a melody known to music lovers around the world as “Ode to Joy.”

The day before, the botanist and ecologist told reporters he was not afraid of death and had no hesitations about ending his life. Goodall was not terminally ill, but his health had deteriorated badly in recent years, according to The New York Times.

“I no longer want to continue life, and I’m happy to have a chance tomorrow to end it,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday.

Assisted dying is banned in Australia, where the British-born Goodall lived for the last part of his life. However, there are some changes in the works ― last fall, the state of Victoria became the first in the country to legalize assisted dying in specific cases. Starting in June 2019, terminally ill patients who have a life expectancy of less than six months can request a lethal drug to end their lives. 

Goodall is an advocate for medically assisted death for the elderly. He has been a member of Exit International, a right-to-die organization, for about 20 years. 

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David Goodall, 104, arrives to hold a news conference a day before he intends to take his own life in assisted suicide, in Basel, Switzerland May 9, 2018.
Stefan Wermuth / Reuters

Goodall flew from his home in Perth to an assisted-dying center in Basel. Switzerland is the only country that offers these services to foreigners. Since Monday, he’s had consultations with doctors, including a psychiatrist, and was visited by the Swiss police.

Reporters at the conference on Wednesday pressed Goodall about whether there was anything that he still wanted to do, or anything that he would miss about life. The scientist replied that he hasn’t been able to do some of things he enjoys for a while.

“There are many things I would like to do, of course, but it’s too late. I’m content to leave them undone,” he said.

Goodall’s last meal was fish and chips, Reuters reports, but the scientist said he hasn’t been able to truly enjoy his meals like he used to.

Goodall died with the aide of a barbiturate that was administered intravenously. In compliance with Swiss law, he turned a wheel to release a fatal dose of the drug himself.

His last words, as the infusion started to drip, were, “This is taking an awfully long time!”

He fell asleep within a few minutes and died at about 12:30 p.m. local time, just as the music for “Ode to Joy” concluded, according to Exit International. Some of his grandchildren attended the final appointment with him.

Goodall asked not to have a funeral or remembrance service. He wanted his body to be donated to science or for his ashes to be sprinkled. He did not believe in an afterlife, the organization said.

He told reporters he hoped sharing his story would “increase the pressure” on Australia to change its laws about assisted suicide.

“One wants to be free to choose his death when death is at the appropriate time,” Mr. Goodall said.

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Before You Go

Famous Scientists On The Possibility Of God
Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)(01 of12)
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The astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei was famously convicted of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church for supporting the theory that the planets revolved around the sun. In private letters, he confirmed that his beliefs hadn't changed.

Writing to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, Galileo criticized philosophers of his time who blindly valued Biblical authority over scientific evidence.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations." (credit:CREDIT IMAGNO VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)(02 of12)
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Known as the founder of the scientific method, Sir Francis Bacon believed that gathering and analyzing data in an organized way was essential to scientific progress. An Anglican, Bacon believed in the existence of God.

In an essay on atheism, Bacon wrote:

"God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion. For while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." (credit:CREDIT STOCK MONTAGE VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)(03 of12)
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Charles Darwin is best known for his theory of evolution. On the question of God, Darwin admitted in lettersto friends that his feelings often fluctuated. He had a hard time believing that an omnipotent God would have created a world filled with so much suffering. But at the same time, he wasn't content to conclude that this "wonderful universe" was the result of "brute force." If he pressed for a label, he wrote that the term "agnostic" would fit him best.

In an 1873 letter to Dutch writer Nicolaas Dirk Doedes, Darwin wrote:

"I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am, also, induced to defer to a certain extent to the judgment of the many able men who have fully believed in God; but here again I see how poor an argument this is. The safest conclusion seems to be that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect; but man can do his duty." (credit:CREDIT IMAGNO VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Maria Mitchell (1818 - 1889)(04 of12)
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Maria Mitchell was America's first female astronomer and the first woman to be named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was born into a Quaker family, but began to question her denomination's teachings in her twenties. She was eventually disowned from membership and for the rest of her life, didn't put much importance on church doctrines or attendance. Instead, she was a religious seeker who pursued a simpler sort of faith.

After hearing a minister preach about the dangers of science, Mitchell wrote:

"Scientific investigations, pushed on and on, will reveal new ways in which God works, and bring us deeper revelations of the wholly unknown." (credit:NYPL/SCIENCE SOURCE VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Marie Curie (1867 - 1934)(05 of12)
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Marie Curie, a physicist, was brought up in the Catholic faith, but reportedly became agnostic in her teens. She went on to become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Both Marie and her husband Pierre Curie did not follow any specific religion.

She is quoted as saying:

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." (credit:SCIENCE SOURCE via Getty Images)
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)(06 of12)
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Albert Einstein, one of the most well-known physicists of the 20th century, was born into a secular Jewish family. As an adult, he tried to avoid religious labels, rejecting the idea of a "personal God," but at the same time, separating himself from "fanatical atheists" whom he believed were unable to hear "the music of the spheres."

In a 1954 essay for NPR, Einstein wrote:

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the Mysterious — the knowledge of the existence of something unfathomable to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason coupled with the most brilliant beauty. I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, or who has a will of the kind we experience in ourselves. I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with the awareness of — and glimpse into — the marvelous construction of the existing world together with the steadfast determination to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. This is the basics of cosmic religiosity, and it appears to me that the most important function of art and science is to awaken this feeling among the receptive and keep it alive." (credit:SCIENCE SOURCE VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958)(07 of12)
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Rosalind Franklin, who helped pioneer the use of X-ray diffraction, was born into a Jewish family in London. In letters to her father, Franklin made it clear that she seriously doubted the existence of an all powerful creator, or life after death.

When her father accused her of making science her religion, Franklin told him that she had a different definition of faith:

"In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvement of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining. Anyone able to believe in all that religion implies obviously must have such faith, but I maintain that faith in this world is perfectly possible without faith in another world...I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our insignificant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more insignificant individuals." (credit:UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)(08 of12)
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Astronomer Carl Sagan is best known for hosting the TV series "Cosmos." He rejected the label of "atheist" because he was open to the possibility that science would perhaps one day find compelling evidence to prove God. Nevertheless, he thought that the likelihood of that happening was very small. Instead, Sagan talked about "spirituality" as something that happens within the realm of material world, when humans encounter nature and are filled with awe.

In his book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Sagan writes:

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual." (credit:MICKEY ADAIR VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Stephen Hawking (Born 1942)(09 of12)
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After years of hinting at it, physicist Stephen Hawking confirmed to the press in 2014 that he was an atheist. Hawkings doesn't believe in a heaven or an afterlife and says that the miracles of religion "aren't compatible" with science.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Hawking said:

"Before we understood science, it was natural to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation." (credit:KARWAI TANG VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Born 1952)(10 of12)
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Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was born in an ancient town in Tamil Nadu, India, that is known for its famous temple dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva. A physicist and molecular biologist, Ramakrishnan was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research on ribosomes. While many Hindus consider astrology to be an important Vedic science and schedule life events around the movements of the stars, Ramakrishnan has spoken out against this practice in the past. He believes astrology evolved from humans' desire to search for "patterns, generalize and believe.

In an interview with the Hindustan Times, he said:

"There is no scientific basis for how movement of planets and stars can influence our fate. There is no reason for time of birth to influence events years later. The predictions made are either obvious or shown to be random ... A culture based on superstitions will do worse than one based on scientific knowledge and rational thoughts.” (credit:OLIVIER MORIN VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Neil deGrasse Tyson (Born 1958)(11 of12)
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Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and a popular television science expert. He told The Huffington Post thathe isn't convinced by religious arguments about the existence of a "Judeo-Christian" god that is all-powerful and all-good, especially when he observes the death and suffering caused by natural disasters. Still, he told Big Think that while he's often "claimed by atheists," he's actually more of an agnostic.

In Death By Black Hole, a collection of science essays, Tyson writes:

"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?" (credit:FOX VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Francis Collins (Born 1950)(12 of12)
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Francis Collins is the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In a 2007 book about the intersection between science and faith, Collins described how he converted from atheism to Christianity and attempts to argue that the idea of a Christian God is compatible with Darwin's theory of evolution.

In an essay for CNN, Collins writes:

"I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship." (credit:Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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