Sarcothe controversy capsule with a futuristic look designed to allow its occupant to commit suicide, was used for the first time without authorization this Tuesday in Switzerland. A woman died due to suffocation and Several people were arrestedThis device has rekindled the debate on euthanasia in Switzerland, a country where assisted suicide is legal but not euthanasia.
Police in the canton of Schaffhausen, close to the border with Germany, learned that the “suicide capsule” had been deployed on Monday evening in a forest area in the municipality of Merishhausen. Once they arrived on the scene, the officers proceeded to arrest of several people allegedly involved on the first use of the “Sarco”. They risk sentences of up to 5 years in prison.
The prosecutor of the jurisdiction opened criminal proceedings against the detainees for incitement and aiding suicide, while the capsule was seized and the body of the deceased was transferred to the morgue.
The Swiss newspaper to click was able to learn that the first user of the capsule was a 64-year-old American citizen who had been suffering for several years from acute health problems linked to a severe immunodeficiency.
Press a button to die
To use the capsule – called Sarco (short for sarcophagus), the person who wishes to die Press a button that releases a large amount of nitrogen and replaces oxygen, causing rapid loss of consciousness and death within about five minutes.
The euthanasia device, invented seven years ago by Philippe Nitschkean Australian doctor famous for his activism in favor of euthanasiais a receptacle with elegant aerodynamic lines and a transparent lid in which the person who wishes to die is enclosed. According to its inventor, Death is “pleasant” and occurs without pain.
The ‘suicide capsule’ ‘Sarco’ during its presentation in Zurich.
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To promote this device, the organization was created a few months ago. The last resortfunded by private donations and which defended Your goal is human and not to make money with the capsulefor the use of which he indicated that I would only charge 20 eurosThis is how much the liquid nitrogen used costs.
This private entity now risks legal consequences for having taken the first step, since some cantons – including Schaffhausen – had warned that they would open criminal proceedings if the capsule was used on their territory.
For this to happen, there are conditions, such as the person presenting capacity for discernmentthat your idea has been well thought out and is not the result of an impulse, that no one is exerting undue influence on it and that it is evaluated by specialists to confirm that it suffers from serious suffering.
Intense debate in Switzerland
Switzerland, a country tolerant of euthanasia and where people from other countries go to commit assisted suicide, has experienced in recent weeks an intense debate on the issue because of the new level this practice could reach if the use of Sarco was finally authorized.
The capsule has sparked debate among authorities over whether they will allow it. Swiss Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider said Monday that the capsule did not meet product safety criteria and could not be marketed, and that The use of nitrogen in a capsule was not compatible with the Chemicals Act.
Swiss law makes a distinction between “euthanasia“(this is prohibited by law) and “assisted suicide”in the sense that the patient must have an active role at the time of the practice: for example, he must be the one who, with his own hands, takes a lethal dose of the barbiturates usually administered in Switzerland for these cases.
Around 1,600 people resort to assisted suicide per year in Switzerland, mainly due to incurable and painful diseases. Among them, the famous French director Jean-Luc Godard, who died in 2022 by assisted suicide in Rolle, a town on the shores of Lake Geneva and about 35 kilometers from Geneva, aged 91 and suffering from various disabling pathologies.
