Several people detained in Switzerland over death in a 'suicide capsule' | Hacker News Reader

Several people detained in Switzerland over death in a 'suicide capsule'

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48 pointsimpish920868 comments

Exit International [1] is an interesting organization. I studied it for an old college paper and briefly immersed myself in the general subject of euthanasia, which is a pretty big topic.

One thing I distinctly remember is the 'quality of death' rating system, where pentobarbital sodium ranks highest, with inert gas asphyxiation possibly second.

I learned too, the European (Dutch?) Holders of the patent prohibit its use for judicial homicide, which has resulted in some pretty grotesque botched execution efforts with alternative methods.

I worked for a guy with an Exit International dog tag DNR necklace. We were discussing the subject of Right to Die when I mentioned the organization and his eyes grew as he lifted it from his chest to show me proudly.

In Switzerland, there is Dignitas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignitas_(non-profit_organis...

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_International

Edit: For anyone considering pursuing euthanasia via suicide tank with a terminal condition, or even without, consider hopping in an isolation tank (or Samadhi) first. Lots of potential for transcendence there, or worst case, discovery and fun.

Terry Pratchett came to Switzerland to help film a documentary on the topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett:_Choosing_to_D...

That was a powerful docu. I remember feeling unwell for weeks proceeding. Some may have very different perspectives, but it was exceedingly sad to me. However, recommended.

What a weird wording

> Switzerland does not allow euthanasia, which involves health care practitioners killing patients with a lethal injection at their request and in specific circumstances.

And next line:

>Switzerland is among the only countries in the world where foreigners can travel to legally end their lives, and has a number of organizations that are dedicated to helping people kill themselves.

I can attest euthanasia is alive and well here, people travel great distances to end their misery here. My wife is a doctor here and this topic is not unknown, she handled that paperwork for few of her patients.

Godard famously used these services recently

not really, you can't euthanise (kill) someone but you can help them die, which the article points out - i.e. you can give someone a method to kill themselves with but you can't administer it to them

> Swiss law allows assisted suicide so long as the person takes his or her life with no “external assistance”

Euthanasia and suicide are not the same thing.

- euthanasia is when someone kills you

- suicide is when you kill yourself

IMO that’s the same thing. Suicide by cop is not euthanasia. In our older years we often need someone’s help to do stuff, but insofar as the act facilitates our agency then it should be understood as our own action.

I was confused by that wording as well and had go to back and forth a couple times and still confused. I would think that them needing to press the button themselves would be enough to distinguish between euthanasia and suicide?

These conversations usually turn into philosophical or religious arguments around life. My opinion is that suicide is completely valid and should not be stigmatized or illegal. Making it "off limits" and scary is how you isolate and drive people towards more unreliable and violent methods of killing themselves.

Yes, death is very sad and uncomfortable but it's a part of life. Whether we leave at 25 or 80 is still equally sad but I don't see it any different. It should be our choice.

If criminalization drives people toward worse methods, then I see how it would make sense to stop criminalization if we assume it doesn't affect the suicide rate.

But are you confident that stigma doesn't decrease the rate of suicide? If you believe it does, but still object to stigmatization, why?

If I understand your question correctly: I'm against stigmatization because I believe it unnecessarily causes more suffering for the person dealing with suicidal thoughts. It shuns them and may cause them to land in a mental institution or getting arrested with both of those having cascading negative effects.

Essentially, if we remove the stigma and update legislation to reflect that, then people experiencing suicidal thoughts won't fear repercussions for merely thinking about, or exploring options around suicide.

Don't you think this could quickly devolve into legitimising suicide as something normal and valid, as opposed to something that should be avoided, through proper care, support and help?

No. Death is already something that is mostly undesirable, I don’t think making “death by suicide” more undesirable than other types of deaths helps in any way.

If someone is sick, he will tend to get treatment for his sickness, be it mental or not. If someone refuses to treat himself (and this happens a lot for non-mental sickness), there is anyway little one can do.

Finally, I think looking at where the world is hurling toward and why, I feel it should be accepted by all that some individuals want to commit suicide as an altruistic gesture.

I think maybe a way of dealing with that would be to require the person to chat to a qualified therapist about it for a couple of one hour sessions before hand. That way the people who were temporarily depressed could be helped out and the ones with something like terminal cancer could go ahead.

They ought to make this thing a 2-seater so a loved one with an oxygen mask can sit next to you and hold your hand.

Speaking of, here is a little short on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9MAf245Yag (suicide topic.)

The company is actually working on one, but with the idea of a couple ending their lives together.

This is important, actually. Full points for bringing this up.

Why not make it a mask for the suicide. I never understood why they made it a full body capsule.

The capsule looks like a coffin from a sci-fi series, the kind of coffin that gets ejected into deep space. Is this intentional ?

so a death in a suicide capsule? What's next

"swiss police detain several people in connection with suspected birth in fertility clinic"

Every time I see one of these stories I'm reminded that the Nazis started by exterminating the unfit [1] - the mentally unstable, the elderly, etc. Only once they had that program well in hand did the Nazis move on to removing others who were (in the Nazis assessment) a "burden to society".

The danger here is that we're saying "there is a right to control how and when you die" but I have never seen anyone articulate an actual moral theory that allows for self-ending but does not also allow for other-ending (and the heart-rending stories that encourage allowing suicide only require the addition of "and she couldn't communicate her wishes" to cross over from supporting suicide to supporting euthanasia). Baring which, allowing suicide is allowing euthanasia. And allowing euthanasia is allowing coerced euthanasia.

[1]: https://hmh.org/event/medical-ethics-and-the-holocaust-how-h... & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics

>>And allowing euthanasia is allowing coerced euthanasia.

That's one hell of a logical leap. I guess that's an argument against abortion too then? Since allowing abortion is now allowing coerced abortion?

It happens:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_abortion#United_Kingdom

> On June 21, 2019, the UK Court of Protection ordered a disabled woman to have an abortion against her will.[18] The woman had a moderate mood disorder and learning disability and under the care of an NHS trust, which argued that she was mentally incompetent and that having a child would worsen her mental health. Justice Nathalie Lieven subsequently approved the forced abortion under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 despite the wishes of herself and her mother.

I didn't say it doesn't happen.

>I have never seen anyone articulate an actual moral theory that allows for self-ending but does not also allow for other-ending.

What do you mean by "other ending"? Do you mean non-consensual ending (murder) or consensual ending (euthanasia).

The fact that someone can be coerced into taking action themselves is a simple fact of life. It is always a possibility with suicide or euthanasia.

Moral theory does not need to split hairs on the probability of that coercion occurring. You can simply say it is moral for someone to decide to end their life , and either do it themselves or get help. You can also hold it immoral to coerce someone into death. Morality does not depend if those standards will be perfectly upheld by humanity. Moral standards never are.

>I have never seen anyone articulate an actual moral theory that allows for self-ending but does not also allow for other-ending.

An individual should have the right to control their own life and their own body, including choosing to end that life. When people have freedom to choose, they may make choices you do not agree with or do not like or that you believe is a bad choice. Being able to choose for oneself is not basically the same as allowing someone else to force you to do something.

Assisted suicide is one of those things that makes perfect logical sense, but is hamstrung by a common lizard brain reaction we all have. One of those things people don't like, or feels icky, and they have no idea why they feel that way.

>but is hamstrung by a common lizard brain reaction we all have. One of those things people don't like, or feels icky, and they have no idea why they feel that way.

You clearly missed all the discourse about MAID in Canada, where people accused the government/medical care system of pushing people into committing suicide so they'd be less of a burden on the medical system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_Canada#Criticism

This is not countering the lizard brain statement. People are are against assisted suicide even without knowing that Canada thing.

So the lizard brain was right after all.

What I immediately thought as well.

With over 50,000 euthanasias carried out in Canada to date, has anybody assessed whether they are disproportionately prescribed to certain demographics or not?

If they are equally distributed then it's unlikely to be coercive in nature but if there is coercion then the proportion of usage by demographic is unlikely to match those demographic's respective proportions in the total Canadian population.

The point isn't that assisted suicide as implemented in canada is objectively bad, it's that it's extremely ignorant and uncharitable to paint all opposition to assisted suicide as "common lizard brain reaction" and "people don't like, or feels icky, and they have no idea why they feel that way".

That's most of it, though. Also, who cares about being charitable towards folks who would deny others compassionate care?

That does not sound viable to me at all.

How would you distinguish between the government coercing a demographic into suicide and that demographic just having a higher-than-average predisposition for it? E.g. people with depression or chronic illness/pain.

Well that's where it gets tricky -- what variables are you allowed to control for in this analysis? Not to spoil anyone, but this is what Soylent Green is about: people on the edges of society aren't actively coerced into euthenasia, but the presence of a more abstract level of coercion is made clear.

In terms of contemporary Canada, what if First Nations people end up using it much more often because they have much higher rates of poverty and drug abuse in their communities? On an individual bodily autonomy level that feels like fair game, but on a societal level the injustice is blatant.

Jordan Peterson recently did a pretty harrowing interview with Kelsi Sheren on this topic. You can see a clip of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YYxOfwrsrU. I say harrowing because silently being water-boarded to death sounds like one of the most awful ways to die.

Even if you, personally, find Jordan Peterson credible, surely you understand that most people won't?

Are you using an extremely controversial source on purpose, to prove some sort of point, or are you genuinely unaware of his cultural position?

Well, that's an interesting point. Have I committed a cultural taboo by posting a video of him here? I assumed HN was a place that talked about the content of a discussion, regardless of their opinion on the person running the interview. Have I misinterpreted this?

Personally, I don't find myself not watching the content of someone just because they say things I disagree with or the world has tried to cancel them. Every now and then I'll watch Peterson's podcast if he's interviewing someone I'm interested in hearing from, but it's not like he takes up a large part of my attention.

I'm still a little bit taken aback that I'm here on HN having to account for merely posting a YouTube link.

...really?

You also see intelligent folks suffer from the curse of knowledge when discussing the topic.

They assume that half the population isn’t below average when it comes to intelligence.

It’s similar to the analogy that crime would go down if every human had a gun, but the analogy fails because of human flaws.

Assisted suicide will always be abused; mentally ill will be killed; kids who want more tax savings will push the button, etc.

Why is assisting someone mentally ill wrong?

For the obvious reason that they may not be of sound mind to make the choice you’re “assisting” them with.

Canada is planning on giving the mentally ill access to maid in 2027.

Most mentally ill people are still perfectly capable of making decisions and you need the approval of 2 doctors.

Most mental illness is also temporary.

Chesterton's fence. Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean there is no reason. Sometimes it's a vestigial evolutionary thing, sometimes it isn't.

A lot of "intelligent" people get caught up in this way.

I feel this is an unfair characterization; there are a lot of very good reasons to argue against assisted suicide and to avoid normalizing suicide in general:

There is always the potential for those mechanisms to be abused, making it taboo instead is the best prevention you can have for this.

There is also the problem that suicide is a very final decision; people regret their choices (often years later) all the time, opening the suicide-door would lead invariably to cases where people throw away the rest of their life even though it would've had immeasurable value to them later had they lived on.

Normalizing suicide in general could also lead to societal changes where death is the expected/desired outcome, and people are basically compelled by group dynamics, even in situations where we would absolutely not see this as justified or desirable currently (i.e. people suiciding because they killed their child in an accident).

> making it taboo instead is the best prevention

I can see that you have never worked in suicide prevention.

Some act that is recognized as bad by society does not stop happening - it simply ensures that members of that society are aware of the badness of the act. This has a deterrent effect because people do not choose a bad act for its own sake while people will choose neutral or good acts for the sake of the act.

Recognizing something as so bad as to be "out of the pale" does not mean that people will not talk about their desire to do it. That depends on a different societal measure - how willing are people to be open about who they really are and what they are experiencing in the moment.

It's probably already extent, but this gives me the idea of an open source suicide prevention platform, where struggling people can reach out to a network of non governmental real humans that, differing from ther perceived rest of the world, have the time, genuine concern and willingness to try to help. There's an enormous deficit of kindness out there, else we're brilliant at making it appear so.

And I think I agree with your comment. Making it taboo might among other unintended things, increase the allure through rebellion or breaking the rules of those who inspired the will to die.

I used to volunteer on the suicide hotline: 988, in the US. I also previously used to live near the Caltrain station in Menlo Park - suicide central for Silicon Valley.

This much is well known: making ANY topic "taboo" for discussion is bad for mental health generally, and prevents people (specifically suicidal people) from seeking the help they need.

It's not a big mystery why: attaching guilt and shame (or legal penalties) to some thought or speech or act will make people much less likely to discuss it. Even when it's burning up their mind from the inside.

>I used to volunteer...

Admirable. And difficult I presume.

I'm not talking about suicide prevention, I'm talking about preventing abuse of the legal framework for euthanasia for nefarious purposes (like what ended up happening in WW2-Germany).

What I've seen in places where this is commonly implemented is a large amount of council before death by suicide is allowed.

It isn't the case that people on a bad day can just walk in to die. It takes months or years of therapy.

I think that's the right approach. Dying is final, but there are also good reasons why someone might want to die early.

But it also suffers from people who insist it makes perfect 'logical' sense though they've never been confronted with the situation and still have a notion of 'logical thinking as though there's some perfect Spock-like way of viewing the world. There is no 'logical/emotional' divide in the way humans make decisions and the belief is almost nonsensical.

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