First woman dies in ‘suicide capsule’ in Switzerland
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.
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.
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.
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 it’s refusal to be inclusive.
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.
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 bit, my partner and I have talked about as an option.
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.
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 often ‘help people along’ in their final hours or even days, that is not the same thing as the euthanasia being described here.
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.
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.
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
I’m not arguing with your statements, I’m arguing against the content therein. Also, it’s not a productive comment to tell people discussing the ethical benefits of a reform to human euthanasia by saying the obvious, which is that it isn’t yet legal.
And for the record, I didn’t downvote you. That information is public. The flag of Israel probably isn’t helping in that regard on Lemmy.
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.
Good point you and others make about airtightness.
For the manufacturing, I’m primarily thinking about how assisted suicide is illegal in most countries, so the ability for anyone to make it, and to make something small, may have some value versus a large, hard to transport device.
If a mask partially fails to seal the procedure would not be correct. It needs to be all nitrogen.
Sure, a proper mask fit can be achieved, but a chamber is more comfortable, AND more reliable.
I addressed that.
As background, as a firefighter I had to twice annually test the seal of my mask, and stay clean shaven.
They had a device that sensed the air moving through the mask, and a candle would be lit right near you.
A few times in my career a mask I felt was a great fit, that fully sealed, marginally failed the test, and I would be issued a new one.
Such a process (or anything similar to it) is not what you want for something as important as this. ANY leaking ambient air is a problem.
I’m aware co2 is the driver of asphyxiation and the panic response. The point is the chamber handles that without the need for any fit test or anything of that nature.
If there is a leak of ambient air into the breathing supply of air, the process is not going as expected.
A chamber straight up solves that AND increases comfortability of the subject as they don’t need to wear something on their head in their last moments.
We need this in the US.
Suicide sucks, but let people make an informed decision, explain their rationale to their loved ones (if they want), and take the dignified way out. Having sat in a house, tasting the blood in the air from when my father-in-law took his life with a gun to end the pain of his cancer, I don’t want anyone to have to go through that. It has been several years and our family still hasn’t healed from that trauma - mostly because of the stigma, and my mother-in-law’s request that we just tell everyone he died peacefully in his sleep.
I would have much rather given him a hug, shook his hand and thank him for being such a guiding presence in my life… and then know that his last moments on earth truly were peaceful, not violent and messy.
The future is here.
They’d take up that fresh prime Redbox real estate.
I’m generally pro-suicide but its depressing how likely your thing sounds.
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.
Ah, but you didn’t buy them!
This is generally the way it goes. Businesses buy rolls of quarters to fill the register, cash-using consumers “buy” bills, and gradually accumulate those quarters as the bills break down. Then, they return it to a bank to deposit them, and (possibly with a stop at the mint to retire old coins and inject new ones) the cycle continues.
Meanwhile, businesses deposit the bills they accumulate, and all kinds of wire transactions between banks, consumers, businesses and the government account for the rest of the money supply.
Philosofuel
Lugh
explodicle
x00za
Zabby [he/him]
Annoyed_🦀 
🇸🇵🇪🇨🇺🇱🇦🇹🇪🇷
whotookkarl
Fidel_Cashflow
RiverGhost
Akasazh