Switzerland police take action over death using ‘suicide pod’

The Sarco assisted suicide capsule has raised legal and ethical questions in Switzerland, where active euthanasia is banned.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Several people were taken into custody after the controversial Sarco suicide pod was used to end a woman’s life, Switzerland police said on Tuesday (September 24, 2024)

Police in the northern Schaffhausen canton said the capsule had been used on Monday (September 23, 2024) at a forest hut, after which several people were taken into custody who are now facing criminal proceedings for “aiding and abetting suicide”.

The Last Resort organisation, an assisted dying group, said in a statement that a 64-year-old woman from the U.S., who was not named, “died using the Sarco device” on Monday.

The capsule has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland, where active euthanasia is banned but assisted dying has been legal for decades.

The Sarco capsule, first unveiled in 2019, is a portable, human-sized pod which replaces the oxygen inside it with nitrogen, causing death by hypoxia.

It is self-operated by a button on the inside, providing death without medical supervision.

“The Sarco suicide capsule is not legally compliant in two respects,” Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, Switzerland’s Interior Minister, said in parliament on Monday. “Firstly, it does not meet the requirements of product safety law… Secondly, the use of nitrogen is not compatible with the purpose article of the Chemicals Act,” she said.