Published4. July 2024, 11:29
Assisted suicideThe first Sarco capsule will be tested in Switzerland
Created by the founder of Exit International, the device that causes nitrogen asphyxiation will soon open in Switzerland. But the procedure raises multiple questions.
This is what the Sarco device looks like.
exitswitzerland.com
All you have to do is enter this futuristic-looking cavity, press the button to release the nitrogen and death occurs. For Philip Nitschke, inventor of the suicide capsule Sarco and founder of the organization Exit International, everyone, even in good health, must have the right to choose their own death in peace. A controversial figure, this 76-year-old former Australian doctor decided to test the device for the first time in Switzerland, possibly in July, reports the “NZZ».
It is no coincidence that the activist Philip Nitschke chose our country to inaugurate Sarco, developed in collaboration with the Dutch designer Alexander Bannink. Switzerland is considered a hotbed for assisted suicide activists. With the subsidiary Exit Switzerland he created – and which has nothing to do with the organization Exit Suisse, which reduces the suffering of terminally ill people – the man wants to be independent of local assisted suicide organizations.
Sarco asks a lot of questions
But the use of this suicide capsule raises many questions, first of all legal. Medical device law can “include a device that kills a person,” explains Kerstin Noëlle Vokinger, professor of law and medicine at the University of Zurich. Sarco would then have to be certified before use and monitored by the regulatory authority for therapeutic products Swissmedic. If he were to be denounced for this practice and end up in court, Philip Nitschke would be put at risk for circulating a medical product without authorization and for helping someone commit suicide, due to “reasons of identity” .
Another essential question, do people who want to end it really die without pain? In January, the first execution of a murderer in the United States by nitrogen asphyxiation raised doubts about the method. The procedure has also been severely criticized by United Nations experts, considering that there was no question of a “quick, painless and humane” death, our German colleagues report.
Areas of Pegasus
Representatives of Swiss euthanasia organizations are not at ease. This is the case of the Swiss Association for Voluntary Assisted Dying Pegasos. “We don’t want anything to do with Nitschke and his organization,” announced its president, Ruedi Habegger. Pegasos wanted to partner with Philip Nitschke, before withdrawing due to legal doubts.
At the moment, it is not known who will be the first to use Sarco, and where and when exactly the device will be tested in our country. And precisely for the reasons mentioned, we may not know, at least not for a while.
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