Sarco Pod by Ratel / Wikimedia Commons
Warning: the following article mentions suicide and contains upsetting content.
CV NEWS FEED // Swiss authorities have arrested several people in connection with a 64-year-old American woman’s use of the suicidal “Sarco” pod on Monday.
The pro-assisted suicide organization Last Resort announced that the woman, whose identity is not public, is originally from the Midwest. She committed suicide in the pod in a private forest retreat in Switzerland on September 23. This marks the first time that a person has used – and died from – the Sarco.
According to the Last Resort’s website, the Sarco is a 3D printed pod that a person can go inside to commit suicide. By pressing a button, the oxygen levels in the pod are lowered significantly and replaced with nitrogen gas, causing the person to lose consciousness quickly, and then killing the person within minutes.
Co-president of the Last Resort Dr. Florian Willet was the only person present at the time of the woman’s passing.
According to The Last Resort, the American woman who used the Sarco “had been suffering for many years from a number of serious problems associated with severe immune compromise.”
Several arrests in connection to the suicide were made after the Sarco’s use, authorities in Switzerland said on September 24, according to The New York Post. The identities of those arrested were not disclosed.
A law firm notified prosecutors of the death, The Post reported, adding that those arrested “are under investigation for alleged incitement and accessory to suicide.”
According to The Post, Swiss officials stated that the Sarco has not received approval in Switzerland.
The Last Resort’s FAQ page contends that approval of the Sarco’s use in the country is legally unnecessary under Swiss assisted suicide law as long as a few conditions are met.
However, Swiss health minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider recently explained “that the capsule does not meet the requirements of product safety law, and that its use of nitrogen is not legally compliant,” CNN reported.
The Last Resort’s announcement about the woman’s death noted that the Sarco’s inventor, Dr. Philip Nitschke, said 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.”
On September 26, Amanda Achtman, a Canadian Catholic journalist, speaker, and pro-life activist, denounced the use of the Sarco pod.
“Suicide is always a tragedy, and any attempts to sensationalize it undermine the devastating impact that suicide inevitably has on those who are left behind,” she told CatholicVote over email in light of the Sarco’s use this week.
Achtman commended the Swiss authorities’ investigation and opening of a criminal case in light of the reported assisted suicide, which “has taken place in violation of existing laws.”
“At the same time, it is important to note that euthanasia and assisted suicide have, historically and across jurisdictions, been legalized following such lawbreaking offences,” she noted. “And so, it is crucial for such acts to be criminally prosecuted so to deter others from aiding and abetting suicide.”
Achtman, who continues to speak out against Canada’s alarming rates of MAiD usage – which is now the fifth leading cause of death in the country – pointed out that doctor-assisted suicide is no less wrong than the self-activated Sarco.
“Now in Canada, an average of more than 250 people per week have their life ended prematurely by a doctor or nurse in the hospital or, more commonly, in their own home,” Achtman wrote. “A doctor-assisted death in someone’s own living room is actually no less sinister than being killed in one of these so-called suicide pods.”
The Catholic Church teaches that euthanasia, suicide, and assisted suicide are never morally permissible, and are grave evils. Achtman recalled the recent document from the Vatican titled “Dignitas Infinita,” which reaffirms the Church’s teaching on the dignity of every human person.
“Even in its sorrowful state, human life carries a dignity that must always be upheld, that can never be lost, and that calls for unconditional respect,” Dignitas Infinita reads. “Indeed, there are no circumstances under which human life would cease from being dignified and could, as a result, be put to an end.”
Achtman also emphasized that people are always worth the effort of loving – and that loving is not accomplished through assisted suicide.
“Life never loses its quality because life’s fundamental quality consists in being able to love and be loved,” she wrote:
To assist a person’s suicide is to agree with this person that loving and being loved is out of reach. But this is never the case and everybody deserves to be affirmed in the ultimate goodness of their creation and of their existence. Addressing the underlying reasons for a person’s suicidal ideation or despair will be demanding, but it’s worth it; people are worth it.
The Last Resort’s website counters the argument that the Sarco “glamorizes suicide.”
“There is a difference between the irrational suicide of a mentally ill teen and the considered rational suicide of an elderly person who says that they have lived long enough and now is the time to go,” the organization states.
Achtman rejected the notion that there is a difference between a “rational” and “irrational” suicide, pointing out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that suicide is never a “rational” act, or in accordance with reason. This is because “suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life,” and because it “unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations.”
There are also serious implications for designating some demographics as people “who especially qualify to be killed,” Achtman wrote.
“Suggesting that there are certain demographics who especially qualify to be killed is degrading and makes entire categories of human beings into outcasts,” she wrote. “Pope Francis has rightly sounded the alarm about how euthanasia and assisted suicide are further examples of a dangerous ‘throwaway culture’ that erodes solidarity, responsibility, and fraternal charity.”
The Church has a role to play in responding to suicide and euthansia-related crises, Achtman noted.
“The Church has many opportunities to rise to the occasion and meet the underlying challenges that give rise to suicide and euthanasia,” she wrote, “through creative and audacious action, the spiritual entrepreneurship of forming new ministries, and the irresistibly compelling apostolate of personal influence and public witness.”
