The Sarco Pod : every home should have one ...
I.
Some readers might recall a news story from late 2021 which reported that someone had invented a 3D-printable [1] suicide pod and planned to demonstrate its practical convenience in the picture-postcard setting of Switzerland, where assisted dying or self-determined suicide - like public nudity and prostitution - is perfectly legal [2].
Well, three years later, and I can announce the suicide pod - which is activated from inside and also contains an emergency button just in case the suicidal subject has a last minute change of mind or perhaps feels a tad claustrophobic - has finally had a fully successful first outing ...
II.
Called the Sarco [3], the futuristic-looking pod works by rapidly increasing nitrogen levels (and thereby reducing oxygen levels), so that the suicidal subject lying snugly inside loses consciousness and dies in under ten minutes (giving them just enough time to count a medium sized flock of sheep if they wish to do so).
Unfortunately, following the event held in a forest in Merishausen - a sparsely populated area on the Swiss-German border - the police moved in and made several arrests on the grounds that the anonymous volunteer - believed to be an American woman in her 60s - had not merely been given assistance in an unregulated manner, but had been incited into taking her own life (one would imagine that's going to be hard to prove in a court of law).
Officers also confiscated the Sarco pod - and, amusingly, took the corpse into custody.
III.
Although a German scientist (natch) by the name of Florian Willet - a leading member of the Last Resort [4] - was present at the woman's death, it is unclear whether he was among those arrested. Afterwards, Willet told a Swiss tabloid that the woman had enjoyed einen friedlichen, schnellen und würdigen Tod - which sounds like a bourgeois marketing slogan if ever I heard one! [5]
Meanwhile, the Australian inventor of the Sarco, Philip Nitschke, who had watched the woman's death via video link, posted on X that she had passed away - just as she wanted - in a beautiful forest and described her death as idyllic (i.e., picture-perfect).
Before entering the Sarco Pod, the woman made a statement to her lawyer - who just so happens to be a director of the Last Resort and married to the good doctor Nitschke - that she was of sound mind; but do people ever know quite how how sane or crazy they are?
She also had the full support of her family, who doubtless acted with good intentions (and besides, it's certainly easier to pop mom in a pod than to provide palliative care).
Notes
[1] The capsule's Australian inventor Philip Nitschke - known by his critics as Dr. Death - doesn't plan to manufacture and sell his machine in the conventional manner. Rather, he intends to make the blueprints freely available online so anyone can download the design and, if they have a 3D-printer, produce their very own model.
[2] According to a government website, Swiss law allows assisted suicide as long as the person takes his or her life with no 'external assistance' and those who help the person die do not do so for 'any self-serving motive'.
[3] This is obviously short for sarcophagus, which, as Síomón Solomon reminds us, is a term with a fascinating etymology that leads towards a dark poetry concerned with flesh eating stone and biting humour (or sarcasm).
In an email, Solomon also notes how on the side of the Sarco Pod is a quote from Carl Sagan, the US astronomer - We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself - obliging him to ask whether the manufacturer is "purporting to create some kind of death-vessel for cosmic self-consciousness".
[4] The Last Resort are the Swiss branch of Exit International, a nonprofit organisation founded by Philip Nitschke that lobbies for the
legalisation of assisted suicide. As far as I know, they have nothing to do with the notorious East End skinhead shop or the English punk band formed in 1980.
[5] Personally, as one who plans on leaping into an active volcano when the time comes to do so, I'm not particularly concerned with the bourgeois ideal of having a peaceful and dignified death. Having violently entered the world with tears, I'm prepared to violently exit screaming.
