I cannot be the only person who thinks SOMETHING about this is fake as hell. There’s just so many signs this is a publicity stunt.
For one thing, if you chase the references it’s hard to find primary evidence this thing has been “approved” for use. The best I can find is this:
“Last year, we sought senior advice on the legality of using Sarco in Switzerland for assisted dying. This review has been completed and we’re very pleased with the result which found that we hadn’t overlooked anything. There are no legal issues at all.”
That doesn’t really SAY anything. There has obviously been no formal government approval of this thing for use.
For another, the constant repetition that it’s “3D printed.” Uh, why? There is no reason for this to be 3D printed. Why would you do that? Why would you even say it?
Then this:
“The first Sarco is being displayed at the Museum for Sepulchral Culture in Kassel, Germany from September 2021 to August 2022.”
Yes, that’s totally what a startup business trying to get this off the ground for actual use would do!
In Colorado, the stats for 2017-2018 show that about 72% of patients who are approved get their prescriptions filled. They don’t track whether the patients actually used the drugs or not.
I’ve always believed that Robin Williams spared himself and his family a lot of suffering by putting an end to his life, and that Lewy Body Dementia, with which he was diagnosed at autopsy, should really be his cause of death.
Several of my clients with advanced metastatic cancer have used the prescription. This is after a great deal of discussion with the prescriber, their families, and me. Normally they are glad to have the prescription filled in case they experience untreatable pain. As noted above, most people in Oregon who get or fill the prescription don’t use it, but having it at hand is a relief.
A question for those arguing that other people’s feelings need to be taken into account when a person is making a decision about ending their life: does this idea only take positive feelings into account?
Suppose I had a family member I really hated. And they had a prognosis that they had an incurable condition which was going to cause them great suffering. They want to kill themselves.
We’ve had people post here that relatives should be able to veto a euthanasia request because the loss of the person would cause them emotional pain.
Can I veto a euthanasia request because I want them to experience as much suffering as possible and it would cause me emotional pain to know they died too quickly?
If you object that this is a ghoulish joke, explain why it’s okay to make somebody suffer because you love them too much to let them die but it’s wrong to make somebody suffer because you hate them too much to let them die.
It really is huge. Full disclosure, I am a recovering successful suicide. Had to be resuscitated and that was not my first nor last serious swing at it. At some point I just got tired of endlessly fighting the persistent suicidal ideation I live with most days. So I acknowledged that my brain is wired differently from most, decided that rather than fighting it I’d just lay it right out there. I copped to it fully in my own mind, stopped trying to put a brave face on things and developed several extremely well engineered exit strategies. And that radical acceptance caused a shit ton of the stress to drop from me such that I could then effectively deal with the exterior stresses, knowing that doing so was a voluntary act. I’m able to keep walking past the open windows by knowing that I’m consciously choosing to do so, being completely free to stop. All the people who would take away my safety valves can fuck off briskly. Not everyone responds well to stupid cookie cutter platitudes and “solutions.”
I take a pretty libertarian view on end-of-life decisions, even for perfectly healthy people. Granted, I’m not wise enough to conceive an effective way to provide universal access to suicide assistance without exposing vulnerable populations to external coercion from other people or even the state.
I think depression in this context can also be considered something of a coercive factor. I think we’d do well to provide people with depression or other mental illnesses the means to seek treatment for their conditions before suicide is considered or allowed.
You know that the missing van lifer thread gave birth to the ethics of suicide thread because a lot of people needed to express their outrage that Brian Laundrie got off easy by offing himself, dontcha?
Okay, anecdote time. One of the people in my community reported about two months ago that his wife had committed suicide. Her 14-year old daughter – his step-daughter – found her hanging in the basement about 6am. He heard the screams and cut her down but she was already cold.
Any messages you would like to send them, especially the daughter? Something like, “Sorry, kiddo. Any loss you feel is entirely your fault and not that of your mother’s”?
What a crass thing for a complete stranger to send to someone, and how little you think of us that you would suggest we would want to do such a thing. Since we only have you as a source of what little information there is about your anecdote, how about cluing us in as to what may have caused the mother to take such an action, and why you think a controlled situation such as what is described in the OP wouldn’t be any better.
Taking your own life with no regard for the harm it may do to the people who love you and rely on you is the moral equivalent of the “fuck you, I got mine” mentality of the fascist right.
Ah yes. I didn’t read the article and thought “it’s like a Tide pod, but deadlier.”
Setting aside the ethical debate, nitrogen asphyxiation is a very comfortable, peaceful, and environmentally friendly clean way to go. No needle sticks or side effects (apart from the obvious). I’m all for it.