What is Sarco, a suicide pod under legal scrutiny in Switzerland after US woman’s death

More crucially, it also raises questions about the ethics of assisted dying and euthanasia.

What are euthanasia and assisted dying?

Both euthanasia and assisted dying are ways in which a person may intentionally choose to end their life.

Euthanasia relies on the presence of a physician to address a lethal drug to the person. Euthanasia may be of two kinds — voluntary, where the patient gives their explicit consent, and involuntary, when they are unable to do so, possibly because they are in a coma.

Assisted dying, on the other hand, is understood to rely on self-administration of the lethal substance, with medical involvement restricted simply to the procurement of the drug. It means intentionally helping another person end their life, and does not stipulate that the person is terminally ill.

What is the Sarco pod?

Named after sarcophagus, the stone coffin used to bury ancient royalty, the Sarco is a coffin-sized, air-tight machine designed by Exit International.

First made in 2019, the Sarco pod consists of a 3D-printed detachable capsule placed on a stand with a canister of liquid nitrogen. A person lying inside it could press a button to initiate the dying process, flooding the air inside it with nitrogen gas.

The device was designed and built in the Netherlands by Nitschke and Dutch engineer Alex Bannink over 12 years and cost around €650,000 ($725,000) to research and develop. Future pods are estimated to cost around €15,000 and to be reusable.

Writing in HuffPost in 2018, Nitschke emphasised that the pod is not available to just anyone, and interested candidates must clear an online mental fitness test first. “If they pass, they receive an access code to a Sarco device that works for 24 hours. After the code is entered and an additional confirmation given, liquid nitrogen in the generator is released, rapidly bringing down the oxygen level in the capsule. Within a minute, the user loses consciousness; death comes a short time later,” he wrote.

The device is portable and can be transferred where one chooses, with Nitschke writing, “Where you die is certainly an important factor.”

Has the Sarco Pod violated Swiss laws on assisted dying?

Active euthanasia is banned in Switzerland. However, assisted dying and assisted suicide are legal as long as the person ends their life without any “external assistance” and those who help them do not have “any self-serving motive”.

The country’s laws on assisted dying and assisted suicide have made it a preferred destination for “death tourism,” wherein people come there to end their lives.

According to critics, the Sarco Pod allegedly exploits a loophole in Swiss laws on euthanasia and assisted dying.

The BBC in 2021 reported that the company consulted Swiss legal expert, Daniel Hürlimann, who said that the pod was “not covered by Swiss law”. According to him, the pod “did not constitute a medical device” under the Swiss Therapeutic Products Act, and the pod did not violate laws on the use of nitrogen, weapons or product safety.

The Swiss authorities do not agree with this observation. Interior Minister, Elisabeth Baume-Schneider said on September 23 that the Sarco capsule does not comply with existing product safety laws. She also alleged that the use of nitrogen was “not compatible with the purpose article of the Chemicals Act”.

The question of “external assistance” has also been raised: the idea of assisted suicide rests on the person’s ability to commit the final act on their own. Current laws do not account for the likes of the Sarco pod, where, while the process is initiated by the person, the nature of external assistance has yet to be defined.