An assisted suicide organization has announced that, for the time being, they are no longer accepting applications to die via the “Sarco” suicide pod, CNN reports.
Dubbed the “Tesla of euthanasia,” the device is a slickly-designed, 3D-printed, portable gas chamber – the perverse brainchild of Dr. Philip Nitschke, director of the pro-assisted suicide organization Exit International, which also oversaw its design, use, and dissemination.
As of Monday, reportedly 371 people were in the process of applying to use the Sarco.
The device was used to kill an unnamed 64-year-old American mother of two earlier this year in a forest near Schaffhausen, which borders Germany. Florian Willet, president of the Swiss arm of Exit International The Last Resort, was the only person present at the scene of the crime when police arrived, although reportedly Nitschke watched via a camera inside the pod. Willet was arrested after prosecutors were tipped off to the suicide by a local law firm.
A Dutch journalist and two Swiss citizens have also been detained, and prosecutors have initiated criminal proceedings against them for aiding and abetting a suicide. Police also seized the device at the scene.
READ: Woman who lost both parents to assisted suicide now wants it legal everywhere
Exit International’s suspension of death applications comes after a coordinated police raid on the organization’s Haarlem, Netherlands headquarters. Authorities confiscated computers and a prototype of the pod in the raid.
Switzerland has some of the least restrictive assisted suicide laws in Europe and is often the site of “death tourism.” As Live Action News has reported, two healthy sisters underwent euthanasia in the country in 2022, the same year assisted suicide businesses complained about a set of non-binding guidelines attempting to make it more difficult to attempt euthanasia. In 2020, the country okayed euthanasia for prisoners.
However, despite the country’s permissive attitude, the Sarco was not legal in the country at the time of its use.
“We warned them in writing,” said prosecutor Peter Sticher, according to Swiss media. “We said that if they came to Schaffhausen and used Sarco, they would face criminal consequences.”
It is unclear whether Nitschke would be extradited to face charges.
Last year, Pope Francis minced no words when it came to the evils of euthanasia. “You don’t play with life, neither at the beginning nor at the end,” he said to journalists. “It is not played with! Whether it is the law not to let the child grow in the mother’s womb or the law of euthanasia in disease and old age. I am not saying it is a faith thing, but it is a human thing: There is bad compassion.”
