An assisted dying group said on Wednesday it hoped to use a new portable suicide pod for the first time in Switzerland, potentially allowing death without medical supervision, within a matter of months.
The space-age-looking Sarco capsule, first unveiled in 2019, replaces the oxygen inside it with nitrogen, leading to death by hypoxia.
The recently formed organisation The Last Resort said it sees no legal barrier to its use in Switzerland, where the law generally allows assisted suicide if the person carries out the fatal act themselves.
“Since people are actually queuing up to use Serco, it’s very likely that it will happen very soon. But that’s all I can say,” Last Resort Chief Executive Officer Florian Willette told a news conference.
“I can’t imagine a more beautiful way to die than to breathe without oxygen and then fall into eternal sleep,” he said.
A person who wishes to die must first undergo a psychological evaluation of his or her mental capacity – a key legal requirement.
The person climbs inside the capsule, closes the lid, and is asked automated questions, such as who he is, where he is, and whether he knows what happens when he presses the button.
“‘If you want to die’, a voice comes into the processor saying, ‘Press this button’,” said Philip Nitschke, euthanasia campaigner and inventor of the Sarco.
He said that once the button is pressed, the amount of oxygen in the air decreases from 21 percent to 0.05 percent in less than 30 seconds.
“They will remain unconscious for about five minutes, after which they will die,” he said.
no way back
As far as someone changing their mind at the last minute, Nitschke said, “Once you press that button, there’s no way to go back.”
The time, date, and place of the first death have not been determined, and it has not been revealed who the first user was.
Fiona Stewart, a lawyer on The Last Resort’s advisory board, said such details would only be made public after the event, because “we really don’t want someone’s desire for a peaceful Switzerland to turn into a media circus.”
Asked if its first use would be this year, she replied: “I would say yes”.
He said the user would only have to pay 18 Swiss francs ($20) for the nitrogen.
But the potential use of the capsule has raised a number of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland, reviving the debate on assisted dying.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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