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Although Switzerland has legalized assisted suicide, four people have since been arrested in this case — not for murder but because they may have violated product safety laws.
An American woman from the Midwest became the first person to die in the Sarco pod, even as another American has announced that she is also traveling to Switzerland to end her life.
The Sarco pod is a recently developed mobile assisted suicide machine. Once a person gets in and closes the lid, a computerized screen asks several questions, the last being, “Do you want to die?” If the person presses a button indicating “yes,” the machine starts filling with nitrogen, which then kills him or her via hypoxia.
Earlier this week, the machine had its inaugural run, killing a 64-year-old woman.
Dr. Florian Willet, co-president of the assisted suicide group The Last Resort, said that the woman, whose identity remains unknown, had suffered from a severe immunodeficiency.
Willet says the woman’s death was “peaceful, fast and dignified” and occurred “under a canopy of trees, at a private forest retreat in the Canton of Schaffhausen close to the Swiss-German border.”
Following the woman’s death, the organization notified police, but when they arrived, in a twist, they arrested four people, including Willet.
“The public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Schaffhausen has opened criminal proceedings against several people for inducement and aiding and abetting suicide … and several people have been placed in police custody,” the Swiss police said in a statement.
“The Sarco suicide capsule was secured and the deceased person was taken to the IRMZ for autopsy. In addition, several people in the Merishausen area were placed in police custody. Prosecutors are also examining other potential criminal acts.”
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland if the person ends their life with no “external assistance” and the person helping them does not do so for “any self-serving motive.”
Last Resort lawyer Fiona Stewart said the woman left a four-minute video of her oral statement confirming her wish to die.
The woman expressed that she had desired to die for “at least two years” following her diagnosis with an illness that gave her severe pain.
She was examined by a psychiatrist who said she had no history of mental illness.
Switzerland’s interior minister says the Sarco pod does not meet the legal requirements.
“The Sarco suicide capsule is not legally compliant in two respects,” said interior minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider.
“Firstly, it does not meet the requirements of product safety law and therefore cannot be placed on the market. Secondly, the corresponding use of nitrogen is not compatible with the purpose article of the Chemicals Act.”
Philip Nitschke, inventor of the Sarco pod, posted his take on X as: “an idyllic peaceful death in a Swiss forest where The Last Resort @tlrswiss used the Sarco device to help a US woman have the death she wanted.”
Nitschke stated that he was “pleased that the Sarco had performed exactly as it had been designed to do, that is to provide an elective, non-drug, peaceful death at the time of the person’s choosing.”
The woman is not the only Midwesterner traveling to Switzerland to die.
Gayle Hendrix, a woman from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, says she is planning to be euthanized on September 26 in Switzerland.
“They put an IV in your arm, and the first medicine that goes through puts you to sleep. And the second one stops all body functions,” she explained. “They have some kind of button on the IV. You have to be able to push that button, and that starts the fluid. In five minutes it’s done.”
Hendrix, 79, has lupus and interstitial lung disease.
Assisted suicide is illegal in Missouri, and while some U.S. states allow nonresidents to be euthanized, a person must have a diagnosis of having just six months to live to be permitted to end their life.
That’s why Hendrix is traveling to Switzerland.
“I’ve had a great life, and I want to have some dignity when I’m going to the next phase,” she stated.
She says her lung capacity continues to decrease.
“I don’t want to get to the point of, this is existing, not living” Hendrix states.
Traveling with her to Switzerland will be her daughter, Charlene Foeste, who disagrees with her mother’s decision.
“You know, you don’t have to agree with people, you don’t, but you do have to love and support people,” Foeste explained. “I can’t say I agree with her decision, I don’t. But, it’s not my choice. I do love her and support her and there’s no way on the planet my mom is going to do this alone, no way.”
Hendrix will not be using the Sarco pod, but a British couple announced earlier this month their intention to die together in the doubles version of the suicide machine.
Switzerland can try to place safeguards around euthanasia, but the fact is that assisted suicide, once unleashed, cannot be controlled. Once you say it is acceptable to help kill a person, you have lost any mooring.
The story of these two women is heartbreaking.
No one wants to suffer. Anyone can sympathize and should feel sorry for the pain they endured, and losing the ability to partake in the most basic everyday activities can leave someone wishing for death to come sooner rather than later. But life doesn’t end with the loss of physical strength. Nor does one cease to be a loved one.
Assisted suicide promises a person an end to their pain but with it comes the pain that loved ones will feel. There is a special and complicated grief and trauma that affects those who experience loss through suicide.
More and more people are heeding the siren song of assisted suicide, and that number will continue to grow as long as euthanasia is couched as dying with dignity rather than the premature ending of life.
God is the author of life, and when we usurp His role, we reveal that we are unqualified to make decisions about life and death.
For example in the Netherlands, a 28-year-old woman used assisted suicide because she had depression and autism and her psychiatrist told her that her problems would not improve. This healthy young woman, who even had a boyfriend who loved her, killed herself with the assistance of a member of the medical profession because she was struggling with mental illness.
When society gave doctors permission to kill suffering patients, they opened a Pandora’s box, and if it’s not slammed shut soon, assisted suicide and euthanasia will only become more normalized and accepted — for any type of suffering.
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