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.
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.
I would rather do this than suffer through dementia, if it comes to that.
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.
I am very thankful for the hospice nurses assigned to my Grandma, who was doomed to a similar fate to your Father, had they not mercifully increased her dosage of pain meds until she passed.
It’s really sad that there aren’t better end of life options, and we need to rely on the Mercy of whatever medical staff are assigned to care for us at the end of our lives. At least here in the US.
My condolences to you and may your father rest peacefully.
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.
You’re so very wrong about that. The chemicals used right now for lethal injection fail often, cause undue pain and distress, and often will paralyze you instead of killing you quickly while you slowly suffocate, unable to call for help. Nitrogen has no downsides. This isn’t a “techbro” solution. It’s a humane one. A guillotine was kinder to the one dying than the current method.
The current method prioritizes minimizing violence and maximizing comfort for spectators over being humane to the one dying. The only reason there is a paralytic in the chemical slurry is because the sleep and lethal chemicals sometimes fail spectacularly and the patient spasms painfully as they die. Their solution wasn’t to change the method to be more humane, it was to paralyze them so they don’t spasm. They’re still in pain. They’re still dying slowly. They’re still scared. But we don’t have to see it, so it’s okay.
Nitrogen euthanasia is safe and humane, killing entirely painlessly. For some reason the fact that it’s a gas, even an inert one, makes people crazy.
Active euthanasia is legal in a few countries for terminally ill patients.
That doesn’t seem an accurate description of the situation. Yes, doctors and nurses sometimes ‘help people along’ in their final hours or even days, that is not the same thing as the euthanasia being described here.
You’re allowed to kill yourself in Switzerland, but this capsule uses nitrogen which violates chemical laws.
There are drugs that you’re allowed to use.
The laws are clearly outdated. Drugs for lethal injection frequently fail and cause much more pain and distress. Nitrogen has *no downsides." It’s like the fact that it’s a gas makes people crazy.
I’m being downvoted and argued with for explaining the situation I have no control over
lemmy, the place where opinion is more important than facts
but this is not eutanasia since there’s no terminal disease, this is just murder.
The woman confirms that it was her own wish to die. She says that she has had a desire to die for ‘at least two years’, ever since she was diagnosed with a very serious illness that causes severe pain.
I think most people can understand her desire to no longer be in constant pain.
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.
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 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.
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.
Ya CO2 is basically the feeling of normal suffocation. Might as well hold a plastic bag over their head.
Yeah I don’t think that’s something anyone should spend much time practicing
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.
Is nitrogen even expensive to get? It’s absolutely everywhere, 70% of air is nitrogen
Panicked animals produce lactic acid which spoils the meat. Even if you don’t care about their welfare killing them cruelly is a bad idea.
Sidenote: Temple Grandin, a widely recognized livestock expert, compiled her research papers in a book I flipped through. What was interesting was that only a couple had to do with what she’s famous for - designing animal handling equipment. Most of them are actually about the psychology of people working in the meat industry, with one specifically saying you shouldn’t hire people who will be violent with the animals.
Co2 reaction is highly, highly concentration-dependent. Rodent euthanasia ideally starts around 20% which makes them cranky and sleepy, they go to sleep, then concentration is upped to around 80% and they die very quickly. Yes, they feel bad when they go to sleep, but it is a mild bad and it’s all over quickly. Rodent euthanasia horror stories are about getting the concentration wrong, not the co2 itself.
Nitrogen - as long as the flow is strong enough to remove exhaled co2 - won’t make anyone cranky, but it takes longer, and the longer it takes the higher the risk of something going wrong with the setup. So, tradeoffs.
There are more and more vets that are using firearms now on farms to euthanize because the drugs they use also cause panic. A 9mm round to the brain instantly incapacitates the animal, they don’t even know what happens. It’s the kindest way to euthanize your animals, anyone telling you the cocktail of drugs or co2 is more humane is full of shit.
Not to mention that the drug they use, euthanyl is very bad to get into the ecosystem. If you have a pet euthanized then you can’t take it home and bury it because the chemical will poison anything that happens to dig up the body and eat it.
Yup, there have been a lot of reports of vultures getting sick or dying from improperly disposed animals.
Physical trauma makes sense for large animals. If you have 50 lab rats that you need to euthanize, a gassing setup can make more sense than individually whacking them.
It makes sense and is more convenient, yes, but they were saying that it’s more humane to do the physical instead.
If you had the time and patience to do a tiny bolt gun to the brain of all 50 rats individually it would probably be more humane. But it’s inconvenient and difficult.
yeah 50 bullets would be kind of expensive. Why not just: https://youtu.be/S1rUooUhZAo?t=301
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.
NO works better, because it doesn’t cause a feeling of asphyxiation.
helium is expensive af, so it’s not an option. (it’s also basically non-renewable and we’re probably running out of helium in the medium-to-far future…so not a good idea)
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.
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.
I can only imagine the depressing mix of religious content trying to guilt you, shitty funerary services that will send AI-generated quotes to your loved ones or something if you’ll just scan the QR code to pay, and online casinos suggesting you whale for them one last time.
Edit: Don’t whale too hard though. It’s unpaid overtime for the staff independent contractors if somebody can’t pay for the machine and makes a mess.
true, it should be a subscription model. can’t remember to cancel it if you’re dead 😉
A quarter costs 25 cents (unless it’s a US quarter on or before 1964 which costs more due to its silver content).
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 federal executive) just called it illegal. Now we will see, if the (cantonal, then probably the federal) 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!
The pod still has to be tested an approved to meet certain standards and regulations to ensure a dignified passing.
Even something as simple as a small leak could prevent the patient from dying, and they may wake back up with severe brain damage, or failing to properly filter out CO2 would cause tremendous distress before their death, or pressure irregularities may induce or trigger various pains. And so on.
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
Oh awesome! How does your governmental system work? How is it structured?
For me in the states we have 3 branches, it sounds like you have something similar?
