In a first, an American woman used a suicide pod to take her own life. The process took place in Switzerland. It’s done by pumping in only nitrogen gas, so the person will lose goes dizzy, loses consciousness and eventually dies. Enter futurama memes.
On a pet forum people regularly talk about (and suggest to others) how they euthanize their old / sick rodents at home using carbon-dioxide unlike nitrogen like this capsule uses. I looked into what’s the difference and it turns out inhaling pure carbon-dioxide instantly causes panic and the sense of suffocation and it’s a horrible way to die. They were even able to cause an panic attack on a person physically uncapable of experiencing fear. There are videos online about killing pigs like this and it’s not a pretty sight. Suffice to say I no longer take advice from those people.
Wouldn’t NO2 work too at similar cost? Or Helium?
Yeah your drive to breathe is based on CO2 in the blood not O2 level. The higher the CO2 the more you feel the need to breathe. That’s why the capsule uses nitrogen. You don’t respond to the lack of O2 and can still flush the CO2 from your system.
That’s horrible. Why would anyone think that co2 is in any way an acceptable way of taking a life?
I guess it’s slightly more efficient than just putting your pets in an airtight container. But still pretty awful.
Because it’s cheap and effective. Why splurge on a bottle of compressed nitrogen or argon when all it does is forgo suffering and cost more? Think of the bottom line.
Would I rather die breathing bottled carbon dioxide, or burn to death? Actually given what actually kills most people in fires isn’t the burns but smoke inhalation maybe I’ll go with the bottle of CO2. What about freezing to death? Might depend on the OAT, if it’s like 30 out that would take a long time to expire, but -50?
What a grim line of thought.
The future is here.
Re-brand it as a liberty booth and sell it as an improvement to the economy and less social services usage to see them pop up all over the US.
Inaccurate. You can’t buy anything for 25 cents.
They can get the cost down in they advertise to you just before you die.
Several people already got arrested, as the capsule hasnt gone through the medical/clinical testing required and because the gas used, nitrogen, isnt allowed to be used in this way medically. A few days ago a Bundesrat (member of the fedefal executive) just called it illegal. Now we will see, if the judicative branch says the same.
Imagine what could have happened given this pod’s lack of approval by medical authorities. It could have gotten somebody killed!
Are you swedish or well versed on their government? I’d like to know how it’s structured if you are able to speak to it
What does being Swedish have to do with anything?
I would also like to hear the statement from the Swedish government, on this news from Switzerland.
I think this is a Sweden<->Switzerland issue.
No it’s pure pebkac
As sad as this topic is, this is a much better way to go than a prolonged miserable painful death where you suffer the last months of a terminal disease.
Terminal or not this is a human way of accepting death.
Imagine your an old 70+/ 80+ couple that are ready to go but together. You can hold your spouses hand, spend time with family, and say your final goodbyes while you are still mentally functioning. Not a burden on anyone or heart broken after losing your partner.
To me, this is a great alternative to dying alone in a cold “retirement home.” I know it is not for everyone but, my partner and I have talked about as an option.
It’s a techbro solution for something that didn’t need a techbro solution. The current way of doing it is trough chemicals that induce loss of consciousness, pain relief, and eventually death.
Active euthanasia is legal in a few countries for terminally ill patients. They have to submit to psychological tests and must be deemed fully understanding of the situation. My grandfather passed away like this a few weeks ago. He organized his own funeral and had some time with my mother and his other children.
To try and push this “invention” and just go for it without going trough the legal processes is just bad and shows not much care by the creators.
Its such a difficult topic to write about. You shouldnt glorify it but you also have to respect peoples wish to die. Putting that sort of sincerity into text is hard imo, but the article did a good job at it. Weird that they arrested the photographer tho :/
I cant imagine a much more peaceful way to go under her conditions.
I found it became a lot easier after my dad took almost three days to ‘die’ after he could no longer really live with his lung, throat and shoulder cancer. I get that dieing sucks ass, but if the alternative is dieing really really slowly, assisted death is really beautiful. Too bad our doctor had moral objections, which is fair for them, but it wasn’t to us. We did not have this nitrogen capsule, we just had to wait it out and let our loved one gurgle themselves to death.
My grandmother chose to spend the last of her time “at home, with dignity.”
We (mom and siblings) lived with her, and got to experience the whole thing. I will spare you the details, but it was not dignified.
I will never put another person through that in my life. Not even hospital staff. If I ever receive a terminal diagnosis, I’m immediately going to begin planning my exit - likely in a similar fashion as above.
It’s also a way for an ableist and ageist society to drive vulnerable people to take matters in to our own hands, instead of “forcing” it to act more directly (as opposed to “only” slightly less directly systemically financially and socially oppressing and excluding us), in a kind of “guilt free” eugenics.
Should people have the right to die, and are there some situations where self euthanasia would be the best way to go? Sure. But lets not pretend that sick, disabled, and or old people have nothing to give and are suffering simply for existing as such, and not because society does very little to accommodate, integrate or even accept us. Capitalism frames us as lazy burdens on the system, and if/once we can’t contribute to the machine, we (and you, if you become ill, have an accident, or just age) get violently tossed to the margins, our lives made impossible to survive without pain and trauma external to our condition/s.
From what I can find, this capsule costs $20 to use, while existing as an old and or disabled person can cost hundreds to tens of thousands more a year. Making society accessible and inclusive would require a lot of work from people who don’t want or care to do it, providing us with this “out” gives them their own.
Be very wary of promoting this as a good solution to people’s suffering without taking in to account just how much of that suffering is created by society and its refusal to be inclusive.
I know you mean well, but you don’t provide solutions of any kind. Simply saying the equivalent of “we should be better to fellow humans” isn’t going to change the world. It’s a platitude.
How do you propose we help the people currently suffering? We just let them suffer until society figures out how to help them? Unite arms and block suicide machines because “they are an easy way out and we should be helping them instead”? Sure, you’re absolutely right, we should be helping them all now, but that’s not how change works. It’s not immediate. While we figure this stuff out, a bunch of people are going to suffer and die painfully.
Also, even if the cynical ending is “the government promotes suicide to get rid of the weak”, I’d argue it’s better than suffering until death.
You’re right that there’s too much unnecessary suffering imposed by our societal system. Still, consider that everyone’s life eventually ends, and for many when that time comes it would be a blessing to choose it on their own terms.
Should people have the right to die, and are there some situations where self euthanasia would be the best way to go? Sure.
I very literally did consider it.
I hear you expressing a lot of pain and frustration with the way society treats people who are elderly or disabled. And you’re right, the first answer shouldn’t be “kill yourself”. While your comment briefly mentioned the right to die, you called this method as ableist, which I think is probably an extension of that frustration rather than factual. Reading the article it seemed to me this organization is very much interested in people’s well being and reducing their suffering in a holistic way.
Yet you still came out eith the heartless WRONG answer. Curious.
Hmm yeah, if i happened to have a debilitating disease that require someone else constant care and i can’t be independent anymore, i’d also like to end it as well, as sad as it sound. Cool that Switzerland have option for that.
Do i need to specify every time when i said independent i mean without the need of people helping hand to do basic thing just so i don’t get harassed in a borderline offensive way? It’s akin of getting contacted by reddit mental health care bot.
We need this in the US.
Suicide sucks, but let people make an informed decision, explain their rationale to their loved ones (if they want), and take the dignified way out. Having sat in a house, tasting the blood in the air from when my father-in-law took his life with a gun to end the pain of his cancer, I don’t want anyone to have to go through that. It has been several years and our family still hasn’t healed from that trauma - mostly because of the stigma, and my mother-in-law’s request that we just tell everyone he died peacefully in his sleep.
I would have much rather given him a hug, shook his hand and thank him for being such a guiding presence in my life… and then know that his last moments on earth truly were peaceful, not violent and messy.
‘The day you die is one of the most important days of your life’, Nitschke says
That’s a chilling way to put it.
It’s great she had the opportunity to end it on her own terms. I hope I also have the same option if I’m ever in a similar situation. Living in daily agony with no hope in sight doesn’t sound like a good life.
I think this is valuable work. I like that the operator can choose a setting and see nature when they go. That said, is there a reason this couldn’t be a mask instead of a chamber? Seems like that sort of separation from location is undesirable, plus it would be much simpler to manufacture.
If a mask partially fails to seal the procedure would not be correct. It needs to be all nitrogen.
Sure, a proper mask fit can be achieved, but a chamber is more comfortable, AND more reliable.
A mask would still work fine with a reasonably good fit and positive pressure, it would just take more nitrogen. I think the stress of having a mask on would be a real problem for some people, no matter how effective.
I addressed that.
As background, as a firefighter I had to twice annually test the seal of my mask, and stay clean shaven.
They had a device that sensed the air moving through the mask, and a candle would be lit right near you.
A few times in my career a mask I felt was a great fit, that fully sealed, marginally failed the test, and I would be issued a new one.
Such a process (or anything similar to it) is not what you want for something as important as this. ANY leaking ambient air is a problem.
This is a different use case, and has different limitations. One of them is portability, another is fit during activity. Neither of these apply to a nitrogen mask for assisted death. In fact, you need a means of gas to escape because CO2 buildup is the cause of discomfort from suffocation, not lack of oxygen. The homebrew device is called a suicide bag and explains in detail why positive pressure, lighter gases, and an opening are preferred.
I’m aware co2 is the driver of asphyxiation and the panic response. The point is the chamber handles that without the need for any fit test or anything of that nature.
If there is a leak of ambient air into the breathing supply of air, the process is not going as expected.
A chamber straight up solves that AND increases comfortability of the subject as they don’t need to wear something on their head in their last moments.
Pretty sure suicide bags don’t have much in the way of fit tests, either, and I mentioned the comfort issue in my very first comment in this chain, no need to revisit it. An air leak into your nitrogen supply is always going to be a problem, possibly a bigger one in the reusable product than the one-off. It only has to work well enough one time.
Masks have to be fitted and air tight, otherwise they just slowly asphyxiate instead of going into a peaceful slumber.
I would think a chamber is easier to accommodate different body sizes and forms, thereby making fitting unnecessary. Also I would assume it is easier/ less stressful on the operator, since they just lay down instead of having something strapped to their face.
Probably comfort. There could be complication if using non-airtight mask, as this method use nitrogen and our air is like 78% nitrogen, could actually take longer for one to go, and airtight mask is uncomfortable. Also they probably don’t need too many of these as demand probably won’t be there anytime soon, so manufacturing isn’t much of a concern.
Good point you and others make about airtightness.
For the manufacturing, I’m primarily thinking about how assisted suicide is illegal in most countries, so the ability for anyone to make it, and to make something small, may have some value versus a large, hard to transport device.
