There has been a controversial device that has been searched on the internet for a few years now. We are talking about the Sarco, a machine or capsule that attempts to support assisted suicide. A kind of sarcophagus from the future, not allowed in many places for obvious reasons. A legal and moral conundrum that opens a new chapter after the death of the person who first entered the device. The incident took place in a forest in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, but apparently not.

News. It is now known that Swiss police have opened a criminal investigation and arrested several people after the death of a 64-year-old American woman in a so-called “suicide capsule.” The incident occurred last Monday in a forest in Merihausen, Switzerland, close to the German border. This is the first such case in one of the few countries where assisted suicide is legal, although under certain conditions.

The prosecution also confirmed that they had opened an investigation into allegations of incitement to suicide and complicity, and were also looking into whether other crimes had been committed. Meanwhile, Swiss Interior Minister Élisabeth Baume-Schneider questioned Sarco’s moral and legal status.

Capsule. As we said, we are talking about a 3D printed capsule that was launched in 2018 and releases nitrous gas with a single button. The device is the brainchild of a group that calls itself “Last Resort” and claims to be made up of “a small international collective of human rights defenders (with expertise in law, science, medicine and health).”

The group says its mission is to “diversify (and improve) the process of assisted dying in Switzerland.” How does it work? The pod is designed to put its occupant to sleep within seconds via nitrous gas. The gas then rapidly reduces the oxygen levels in the capsule until the person dies. The whole process is said to take around five minutes.

Inventor. The person who created the capsule is the Australian doctor Philip Nitschke, popularly known as the “euthanasia guru”. He was the first person to perform euthanasia in the Netherlands after it was legalized in 2001, and has been a staunch advocate of the “right to die” through the publication of several books. A few years ago, he launched The Sarco, with the aim of encouraging “the safe, non-violent taking of one’s own life”.

In fact, Nitschke confirmed these days that the woman had “a heavenly and peaceful death in the Swiss forest” and that the capsule was used to give her “the death she wanted”. The man reportedly watched the woman die via video link in Germany, monitoring the readings of the oxygen and heart rate monitor attached to her.

How did he die? German scientist Florian Willet is believed to have been the only person present at the American’s death. He is one of the main members of The Last Resort. Blick described the woman’s death as “peaceful, swift and dignified”. “She had suffered from a number of serious health problems for many years, linked to an autoimmune disease.”

He also explained that he lost consciousness “within two minutes” and died five minutes later. “We saw little jerky twitches in the muscles in his arms, but he was probably unconscious at the time. He looked exactly as we would expect him to look,” he detailed.

The right to die. Before entering the device, the woman gave a statement to Fiona Stewart, a lawyer who runs The Last Resort. In it, she confirmed that it was her wish to die and that she had the support of her two children. The woman explained that she had wanted to do this for two years after being diagnosed with a serious illness that caused her severe pain.

The lawyer also stressed that he had previously been examined by a psychiatrist who deemed him mentally stable.

Argument. But open research shows there’s a long way to go before such machines are used. Under Swiss law, assisted suicide is permitted as long as the person ends their own life without “external assistance” and those helping the person die do not do so for “any selfish reason.”

The capsule first received regulatory approval for public use in Switzerland in 2021, but controversy has continued over the device since then. Several people were arrested in connection with the woman’s death after its first use last Monday, with the prosecutor’s office stating that they had “opened an investigation into allegations of incitement to suicide and complicity.”

Because? It’s not entirely clear what exactly went wrong from a legal perspective, but government officials have openly criticized the device for not meeting local safety standards. It’s possible that all the controversy isn’t just about bureaucracy.

The “morality” of wanting to die. From a “moral” perspective, this is of course up to the curb. When faced with states that reject euthanasia on the basis of the same principles used in the fight against suicide (that life has an intrinsic value in itself), people like Nitschke refute the theory as a serious error.

“I reject it. A person’s desire to die should not be considered in isolation. Another objection is that life is a gift. My counter-argument is that if life is a gift, you are allowed to give it away. Otherwise, isn’t it more of a burden than a gift?” he explained in a recent interview.

Doubts about the machine. However, as we explained a while ago , the device itself raises other questions. The machine requires the “client” to be over 50 (to avoid encouraging suicidal thoughts in young people), but more importantly, what happens to those with a serious clinical stage, such as severe, treatable depression? Will they have access?

The doctor clearly explained that yes, and that a mandatory test beforehand would determine whether you were mentally healthy. It is a difficult issue to distinguish between those who want to end their life convinced of this and those who think it is probably reversible due to a mental illness, it is not a simple equation.

Image | Ratel

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