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 bit, my partner and I have talked about as an option.
I would rather do this than suffer through dementia, if it comes to that.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yet you still came out eith the heartless WRONG answer. Curious.
I hear you expressing a lot of pain and frustration with the way society treats people who are elderly or disabled. And you’re right, the first answer shouldn’t be “kill yourself”. While your comment briefly mentioned the right to die, you called this method as ableist, which I think is probably an extension of that frustration rather than factual. Reading the article it seemed to me this organization is very much interested in people’s well being and reducing their suffering in a holistic way.
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.
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
The future is here.
Inaccurate. You can’t buy anything for 25 cents.
true, it should be a subscription model. can’t remember to cancel it if you’re dead 😉
Oh god, you probably have to download a janky app with tons of unexplained permissions.
They can get the cost down in they advertise to you just before you die.
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
staffindependent contractors if somebody can’t pay for the machine and makes a mess.
A quarter costs 25 cents (unless it’s a US quarter on or before 1964 which costs more due to its silver content).
Good luck getting them in quantities less than a roll, though.
I have tons. I get $0.61 in change each night. Save the quarters for laundry and other minor expenses, and the dimes and pennies go into a jar that gets filled up and dumped into the change machine at my credit union
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.
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.
Death with dignity should be the same human right as any other freedom.
Ok. I just read this as a way to die in an Andy Weir novel
The book also makes a pretty good case for heroin as a suicide method. I was swayed.
Heroin overdose is not good
One would think that it’s quite pleasurable
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.
Do i need to specify every time when i said independent i mean without the need of people helping hand to do basic thing just so i don’t get harassed in a borderline offensive way? It’s akin of getting contacted by reddit mental health care bot.
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.
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
It’s not rare but it’s a pain in the ass to purify and transport. Semiconductor place I used to work had a gigantic 1000 gallon tank of the stuff they had to get refilled every month. Had to have some specialty chemical tanker truck it out. Then there’s problems with icing your whole setup once you actually have the stuff and try to use it. It’s less of an immediate fiscal strain and more of an expensive infrastructure problem.
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.
The speed can significantly vary with CO2. I don’t like it much myself, but due to how hemoglobin works it forces your lungs to work backwards and dump oxygen like you were in the vacuum of space. Unconsciousness is generally very rapid compared to other asphyxiants.
Ya CO2 is basically the feeling of normal suffocation. Might as well hold a plastic bag over their head.
Faster if it’s pumped in, but yeah, still terrible.
Which isn’t too bad if you can stay calm and relax tbh. Slow deep breaths let you feel like you’re doing something to continue your survival without the panic of frantic breathing. Takes a bit of practice but honestly not as bad as it seems.
Yeah I don’t think that’s something anyone should spend much time practicing
I’ll Keri that in kind for next time.
I sincerely hope you never need to. Best of luck
Sorry, should have /s… Was 2 min after waking up lmao
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.
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.
I believe freezing to death is considered one of the better ways to go, actually. My understanding is that hypothermia is painful to start but then you are numb and out of it as it progresses.
Yeah your drive to breathe is based on CO2 in the blood not O2 level. The higher the CO2 the more you feel the need to breathe. That’s why the capsule uses nitrogen. You don’t respond to the lack of O2 and can still flush the CO2 from your system.
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.
In a way I hope my dog dies of natural causes because I don’t want to put him down and not get to put him in the forest of our backyard.
Cremation is bullshit, they cremate a pile of pets all at once and scoop out some for each person. You likely aren’t getting your own pet back.
You say this now but man you don’t want to see how sad a dog is when they are really old can hardly walk. Sit in the corner all day and just be alone. Only coming out for food/water.
I say that knowing that if it gets really bad I know how to take care of him painlessly but without euthanyl so I can bury him where he deserves to be decompose back into the universe.
So far he is 13.5 years old, blind in one eye, has had 2 tumour removed, a current tumour pressing on his brain, is on 3 different meds (4 if you include occasional CBD) he still runs and chases for kibbles and loves his humans so he’s probably not ready to go yet. Maybe 6 months from now will be different but that is a 6 months from now problem.
I have a dog that is getting old, and I dread that day.
Our vet offers a choice between group or solo cremation, with the latter of course costing more.
And yeah that’s assuming they’re being honest, lol.
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.
Completely agreed, but at that point, just use nitrogen, it’s insane that this isn’t the standard practice.
yeah 50 bullets would be kind of expensive. Why not just: https://youtu.be/S1rUooUhZAo?t=301
Wouldn’t NO2 work too at similar cost? Or Helium?
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)
I think this is valuable work. I like that the operator can choose a setting and see nature when they go. That said, is there a reason this couldn’t be a mask instead of a chamber? Seems like that sort of separation from location is undesirable, plus it would be much simpler to manufacture.
Probably comfort. There could be complication if using non-airtight mask, as this method use nitrogen and our air is like 78% nitrogen, could actually take longer for one to go, and airtight mask is uncomfortable. Also they probably don’t need too many of these as demand probably won’t be there anytime soon, so manufacturing isn’t much of a concern.
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.
Masks have to be fitted and air tight, otherwise they just slowly asphyxiate instead of going into a peaceful slumber.
I would think a chamber is easier to accommodate different body sizes and forms, thereby making fitting unnecessary. Also I would assume it is easier/ less stressful on the operator, since they just lay down instead of having something strapped to their face.
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.
A mask would still work fine with a reasonably good fit and positive pressure, it would just take more nitrogen. I think the stress of having a mask on would be a real problem for some people, no matter how effective.
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.
This is a different use case, and has different limitations. One of them is portability, another is fit during activity. Neither of these apply to a nitrogen mask for assisted death. In fact, you need a means of gas to escape because CO2 buildup is the cause of discomfort from suffocation, not lack of oxygen. The homebrew device is called a suicide bag and explains in detail why positive pressure, lighter gases, and an opening are preferred.
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.
Pretty sure suicide bags don’t have much in the way of fit tests, either, and I mentioned the comfort issue in my very first comment in this chain, no need to revisit it. An air leak into your nitrogen supply is always going to be a problem, possibly a bigger one in the reusable product than the one-off. It only has to work well enough one time.
Awesome! Good for her. She died on her terms, with dignity. This is how we should see end of life. I want something like this available to me if I get a terminal illness or just age to somewhere past my 70s and wish to die on my terms.
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 fedefal executive) just called it illegal. Now we will see, if the judicative branch says the same.
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
What does being Swedish have to do with anything?
Was an accidental mistype
The worst kind
that made me chuckle
I would also like to hear the statement from the Swedish government, on this news from Switzerland.
I think this is a Sweden<->Switzerland issue.
No it’s pure pebkac
Congrats. I make a mistake and you act like a complete piece of shit.
I could say the same. Hurray?
I am swiss and I know how our system works pretty well, I am a teacher
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?
Yes, 3 branches (just the standard separation of powers) and 3 “levels” (with the judicative branch 4 depending on the case). Swiss and US system is very similar. The big and important difference is the election system. The US has the shitty system that forces a two-party-situation over the years. We have a more proportional system, where you vote for a party (actually a list by a party but thats a detail) and for candidates. Then the seats are spread to the parties, if your chosen party doesnt win a seat, your vote isnt wasted (which would then require strategic voting which leads to two parties). Your vote is passed on to another party. Which one that will be, your party decides. So if you vote for “radical-left-party” and its members, this vote isnt wasted bit goes to another leftleaning party, which has a “Listenverbindung” (Joint up lists) with the “radical-left-party”.
And of course we have direct democracy (voting often on singular laws, also statewide/canton/communal) and we dont have gerrymandering but just the normal division into “Gemeinden” (literally “community”, which would be a county? or village/city in the US).
I dont want to be obnoxious or condecending, but i think the swiss has one of the best democratic systems while the US has a very bad system considering the US is known to be democratic and even the birthplace of democracy. It turns out that later updates to democracy were needed. :D
Man that sounds amazing. I honestly am pretty envious of your system. For your voting system, are you allowed to specify a preferred alternative similar to ranked voting or how does that work precisely?
Technically we have a open-list party-list proportional representation for the Nationalrat (one part of the legislative on federal level, like the congress in the US). This is the most interesting one in my opinion. Other parts of the political body do have slightly different systems I think, the Ständerat (kinda like the senate) even has a majority system.
I went down a YT rabbithole, because of your comments :D Short, kinda maths-video about different votingsystems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaxVCsnox_4 A longer math/maths-history video by veritasium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7ws2DF-zk More about the tradition and culture in swiss politics (altho a bit romantic i must say) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ5pmW3l8tU
Imagine what could have happened given this pod’s lack of approval by medical authorities. It could have gotten somebody killed!
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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.
‘The day you die is one of the most important days of your life’, Nitschke says
That’s a chilling way to put it.
It’s great she had the opportunity to end it on her own terms. I hope I also have the same option if I’m ever in a similar situation. Living in daily agony with no hope in sight doesn’t sound like a good life.
