All eyes on David Goodall as he undergoes assisted suicide today

David Goodall

On April 4, this year, an exuberant group of about eight people assembled at a house in the Australian city of Perth for a birthday party. As the gold bottle champagne popped and the candles burned slowly on top of a modest round cheesecake, the camera panned across the room, slowly revealing the excited faces of the attendees as they passionately sang out a birthday song.

Yet, amidst all the exuberance in the room, an old white-haired man with a heavily wrinkled face sat oddly on a wheelchair in the corner, gazing around the room, uncomfortably and visibly impatient for the charade to end.