Sarco is the brand name for one of the most controversial products of recent years: a kind of sarcophagus with state-of-the-art technology that facilitates access to death (assisted suicide) in countries where this practice is approved.
The device, a glass and carbon fiber capsule, has already received approval under Swiss law and can be marketed in that country.
The system was created long ago by Philip Nitshke, an Australian physicist who has been fighting for rights related to euthanasia since the beginning of the century.
The capsule allows people to control a nitrogen inhalation system from the inside that leads to painless death of patients.
According to the product, people fall asleep and die quickly, “without panic and without feeling of suffocation,” says the company.
Where euthanasia is not legal, this product obviously does not make any sense. However, it becomes relevant in Switzerland, where the so-called “assisted suicide” is.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide are not the same concepts. Euthanasia forces someone else to administer the death. In assisted suicide, that other person only provides the necessary elements for patients to kill themselves.
Sarco seeks to fill a market niche that was not covered: that no action or facilitation is needed from that second person.
The capsule can be purchased made or generated with a 3D printer. As we said, it is activated from the inside and can be taken anywhere a person wants to spend their last moments alive.
At the nitrogen outlet you can activate it with a button or simply with a blink, in the case of people with paralysis.
As directed by the manufacturing company, Sarco flushes with nitrogen, rapidly (30 seconds) reducing the oxygen level from 20 percent to 1 percent.
The person feels some disorientation and then euphoria before losing consciousness.
Death occurs in an average of eight minutes, after suffering from hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and hypocapnia (lack of carbon dioxide).
For now, there are only two existing Sarco prototypes, there is another that is being manufactured in the Netherlands and will be finished in 2022 to be sold in Switzerland. Gizmodo.
👉 #Sarco : the capsule d’assistance au suicide est légalement approuvée en Suisse https://t.co/CwgY6PpSLa pic.twitter.com/mGd4vH5t1S
– Tom’s Guide France (@TomsGuideFR) December 7, 2021
Switzerland: mecca for assisted suicide (with or without Sarco)
Many foreigners travel to Switzerland to die with the help of an organization.
This is a phenomenon known as “death tourism”.