PORTLAND, OR — “Love abounds” surrounded by his family Dr. Peter Goodwin has died peacefully using Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, a law he campaigned hard for years to enact. He called it “his greatest legacy.” Dr. Goodwin was a family physician at Oregon Health & Science University since 1985. In 2006, Dr. Goodwin was diagnosed with corticobasal ganglionic degeneration, a rare terminal brain disorder. He said, “I feel grateful, but not privileged, to be able to die with dignity. To approach death according to one’s own values and on one’s own terms is not a privilege, but an essential human right.” Before his death, he reflected on his life in an interview saying."We just haven't come to terms with the fact that we're going to die, all of us, and to make concessions to that is really giving up hope," Rather, in his view, when at death's door, "the situation needs thought, it doesn't need hope. It needs planning, it doesn't need hope. Hope is too ephemeral at that time." "I don't want to go out with a whimper. I want to say goodbye to my kids and my wife with dignity." Dr. Goodwin was 83.
