The right way to die

 A Swiss company has manufactured a suicide pod meant to make voluntary death a painless—even euphoric—experience

Yours truly strongly believes in the right to die and, as corollary, no one should die with pain, notions Switzerland and Washington state understand without exception. With this in mind, the right way to die may be at hand if Exit's Sarco works as intended when one wants to go when the timing's right.

Imagine getting into a futuristic, purple, 3D-printed capsule. You lie down comfortably inside it. Then, an intercom system asks you some very simple, ice-breaker questions: “Who are you?” “Where are you?” “Do you know what happens if you press this button?” Once you’ve answered the questions, you are free to press the big, red button featured prominently to your right. Ten minutes later, you will not be in space—as you might be imagining—but safely on the ground. Technically speaking, you will not be at all.

Instead, this capsules transports you to death. Exit International, a Winnellie, Australia-based nonprofit, designed the so-called Sarco (short for sarcophagus) suicide pods. The company advocates for the legalization of both voluntary euthanasia (where a person’s life is finalized at their own request to relieve pain and suffering) and assisted suicide (suicide committed with the aid of another person, usually a physician). Its suicide pods recently got the legal green light from Switzerland’s medical review board.

Suicide can be painless

Sarco works like this: when you press the death teleportation button, a canister of liquid nitrogen, which sits inside a stand tucked below the capsule, floods the interior with nitrogen gas, causing oxygen levels to drop to less than five percent in one minute. Unlike gas chambers, in which the person inside inhales poisonous gases (like hydrogen cyanide or Zyklon B), inert nitrogen is not toxic and it has no smell. In fact, nitrogen actually comprises 78 percent of the air we breathe. When you inhale pure nitrogen, though, it’s conducive to feelings of disorientation and slight euphoria, akin to how you might feel if you were inside a plane cabin that suddenly depressurized. Ultimately, death comes along as a result of oxygen deprivation and a hyper-concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood in ten minutes max.

Works for me.