Final Exit founder: Assisted suicide about individual rights

We have done nothing wrong.

In a wide-ranging interview Tuesday morning, the founder of the embattled right-to-die group Final Exit Network said his organization is not guilty of assisting chronically ill people in committing suicide.

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Joey Ivansco/jivansco@ajc.com

Ted Goodwin has been charged, with three others, in connection with the death of a Cumming man.

ASSISTED SUICIDE

• For complete coverage and the latest news on the assisted-suicide cases and the Final Exit Network, go to ajc.com/suicide.

“I categorically and emphatically deny the allegations … in their entirety,” Ted Goodwin said. “I have committed no crime. There has never been a crime committed. We do not assist them.”

In his first interview since his arrest last month on charges that he and other members of Final Exit assisted with the suicide of a Cumming man, Goodwin said he felt the case against him was baseless. Because of pending litigation, and on the advice of his attorney Bruce Harvey, he refused to answer direct questions about his alleged involvement in the 2008 death of 58-year-old John Celmer. But Goodwin said he believed the case would be a litmus test for the right-to-die movement and that it had the potential to establish case law.

Goodwin and three other members of Final Exit were charged last month in connection with Celmer’s death. He died by inhaling helium through a hood until he was asphyxiated, law enforcement officials said. Claire Blehr, 76, of Atlanta, and Maryland residents Dr. Lawrence Egbert, 81, and Alec Sheridan 60, were also charged.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says Final Exit members assisted Celmer’s death by holding down his hands. But Goodwin maintains that Final Exit does not restrain people but only observes their deaths and offers them comfort.

According to an affidavit, Celmer sought the services of Final Exit after treatment for cancer in his face and neck left him disfigured. Celmer’s doctor told police that his patient was despondent but cancer free.

Final Exit does not require the people who seek them out to be terminally ill, but they must be “suffering intolerably” from the pain of an irreversible condition.

Since its founding in 2004, Goodwin said, Final Exit has been present for about 180 suicides but that several hundred people seek their services every year. Goodwin, 63, lived in Atlanta for 33 years but now spends most of his time at his home in Florida. A longtime member of the right-to-die movement, Goodwin started Final Exit while he lived in Georgia. While other organizations focused on advancing their cause incrementally through legislative initiatives, Goodwin grew tired of that approach, saying it was too passive and focused too much on the needs of the terminally ill and not enough on the chronically ill.

“There are those who will suffer interminably for years who don’t want to go on this way,” Goodwin said. “They’re on the verge of quadriplegia, they don’t want someone providing bathing services to them and feeding them and dressing them for the next 20 years as they lay quadriplegic looking at the ceiling. Why should these people not have some degree of support in this if they are mentally competent to make that decision? I believe this is an individual rights issue. You, and you alone should determine when you’ve had enough at the end of life.”

Goodwin said his organization has suspended operation while the case is being investigated, and that Final Exit will not resume “supporting” people who want to end their lives until the case has been tried in court. But Goodwin said that if he is acquitted, the group will resume its work. But if he is convicted, “that would be the end of the ballgame,” he said.

“I hope not to go to jail, I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong (but) I knew when we founded this that there was that chance and I was willing to take that chance. But I have conducted myself as cautiously as I know how in order to avoid that.”

Authorities charged the four Final Exit members after a sting operation in February by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Both Goodwin and Blehr were with Celmer when he died and had helped him prepare, according to the affidavit.

In addition to the assisted suicide charges, Goodwin, Blehr, Egbert and Sheridan are also charged with violating the Georgia Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act as well as tampering with evidence. Goodwin likened his organization’s work to that of a ministry, offering hope to the suffering.

“It is activism that has driven every social justice movement,” he said. “It has to be done responsibly, it has to be done with thoughtfulness but yet there’s some degree of provocation that must take place in order for things to happen.”