no exit

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ATLANTA " Joining the Final Exit Network costs $50, and the privileges of membership include this: When you're ready to die, the organization will send two "exit guides" to show you how to suffocate yourself using helium tanks and a plastic hood. The Georgia-based organization says it is providing an invaluable and humane service. Authorities call it a crime.

Four members of the Final Exit Network, including its president and its medical director, were arrested Wednesday and charged with assisted suicide in the death of 58-year-old John Celmer last June at his home near Atlanta. Investigators said the organization may have been involved in as many as 200 other deaths around the country.

"The law is very clear, and they clearly violated it," said Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead.

The arrests came after an eight-month investigation in which an undercover agent posing as someone bent on suicide infiltrated the Final Exit Network, which bases its work on "The Final Exit," a best-selling suicide manual by British author Derek Humphry.

Members of the Final Exit Network are instructed to buy two new helium tanks and a hood, known as an "exit bag," according to the GBI. In court papers, investigators said the organization recommends helium because it is undetectable during an autopsy.

The network, which was founded in 2004 and claims 3,000 members, donors and volunteers nationwide, has long operated in the open. It has its own Web site, and its leaders have held news conferences and appeared at paid speaking engagements.

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[+3] - hightor - 12/05/2021 [size=150]Sarco suicide capsule â��passes legal reviewâ�� in Switzerland[/size] [quote]According to Swiss law experts, the Sarco suicide capsule â��passes legal...

These people are providing a needed service. It's a shame the law can't go after real criminals instead.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

For sure. Their advice probably works better than the Anarchists Cookbook, and it's still out there as far as I know.

1 Reply

@roger,

Besides, there are other ways to do it without their help, so why blame them?

A Russian man died after guzzling a bottle of Viagra to keep him going for a 12-hour orgy with two female pals.

The women had bet mechanic Sergey Tuganov $4,300 that he wouldn’t be able to follow through with the half-day sex marathon.

But minutes after winning the bet, the 28-year-old died of a heart attack, Moscow police said.

“We called emergency services but it was too late, there was nothing they could do,” said one of the female participants who identified herself only as Alina.

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Our government feels that people must suffer long and hard. They don't believe in an 'easy way out'. You must live until that last bit of brain wave stops functioning no matter how much you're suffering. Even your last breath could be drawn by a machine!

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@edgarblythe,

But as much as they tried they couldnt get that smile offn his face.

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@dyslexia,

They can tell if theres helium in the guys system,noone has been looking for it until now,. Im sure that, in the future, whenever they see a corpse with a plastic bag over his face, they will do blood chemistry and include noble gas content.

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@dyslexia,

Nonetheless it's a matter of time, I think.

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I feel certain that such laws are the product of Christian fanaticism, which declares suicide a sin, without considering cases. I can think of no earthly reason that suicide should be considered criminal. Those who might argue that someone who was despondent or of diminished capacity for judgment might be talked into suicide by a self-interested party ignore that any crime would be on the part of the self-interested party. Simple enough to make that criminal.

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Set- Just noticed your signature. I love it.

Anyhow, just last week I went to a meeting that featured a guide from the Final Exit Network. He explained how his organization works. Personally, he has flown all over the country to be of assistance to a number of people. He cannot help the person with the carrying out of the suicide, only advise.

He said that he is seeing a few people now, one for over three years. His organization does not push suicide, but are there for practical help, and emotional support.

At the meeting, I picked up the latest version of Humphrey's "Final Exit", which demonstrates how to off yourself with the bag and helium. Apparently Humphrey is no longer as strong an advocate for taking pills, which, IMO, is a much more elegant way to go.

This society is so sick. It would euthanize a pet to "put it out of its misery", but would not do the same for a suffering human being.

1 Reply

@Phoenix32890,

Quote:

Set- Just noticed your signature. I love it.

Credit where it's due . . . it comes from a placard on a bus in the humanist "atheist signs" campaign in England.

Quote:

This society is so sick. It would euthanize a pet to "put it out of its misery", but would not do the same for a suffering human being.

I agree completely, and once again would point to the religious goofballs, who seem to think that suffering is visitation of God's judgment, and should be meekly endured. Like so many people in Europe (although usually only the Protestants) in the 17th and 18th centuries, Edmund Nelson, a C of E preacher and the father of the famous naval hero Lord Horatio Nelson, would not wear eyeglasses because he considered his short-sightedness to be a judgment of the Lord, and any suffering associated with it to be an ennobling experience.

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OLYMPIA, Wash. " Terminally ill patients with less than six months to live will soon be able to ask their doctors to prescribe them lethal medication in Washington state.

But even though the "Death with Dignity" law takes effect Thursday, people who might seek the life-ending prescriptions could find their doctors conflicted or not willing to write them.

Many doctors are hesitant to talk publicly about where they stand on the issue, said Dr. Tom Preston, a retired cardiologist and board member of Compassion & Choices, the group that campaigned for and supports the law.

"There are a lot of doctors, who in principle, would approve or don't mind this, but for a lot of social or professional reasons, they don't want to be involved," he said.

But Preston said discussions about end-of-life issues between doctor and patient will increase because of the new law, and he thinks that as time goes on more and more doctors who don't have a religious or philosophical opposition will be open to participating.

"It will be a cultural shift," he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that it was up to states to regulate medical practice, including assisted suicide, and Washington's Initiative 1000 was passed by nearly 60 percent of state voters in November.

It became the second state, behind Oregon, to have a voter-approved measure allowing assisted suicide

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Sarco suicide capsule ‘passes legal review’ in Switzerland

Quote:

According to Swiss law experts, the Sarco suicide capsule ‘passes legal review’ in Switzerland.

A 3D-printed capsule, destined for use in assisted suicide, may legally be operated in Switzerland, according to advice obtained by Exit International, the organisation that developed the ‘Sarco’ machine.

Some 1,300 people died by assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2020 using the services of the country’s two largest assisted suicide organisations, Exit (no connection to Exit International) and Dignitas. The method currently in use is ingestion of liquid sodium pentobarbital.

The Interview

SWI swissinfo.ch spoke to Dr Philip Nitschke, founder of Australia-registered Exit International, about his innovation, the coffin-like Sarco capsule, and what place he expects it will have in the Swiss assisted dying sector.

SWI swissinfo.ch: What is Sarco and how does it work?

Philip Nitschke: It’s a 3-D printed capsule, activated from the inside by the person intending to die. The machine can be towed anywhere for the death. It can be in an idyllic outdoor setting or in the premises of an assisted suicide organisation, for example.

The person will get into the capsule and lie down. It’s very comfortable. They will be asked a number of questions and when they have answered, they may press the button inside the capsule activating the mechanism in their own time.

The capsule is sitting on a piece of equipment that will flood the interior with nitrogen, rapidly reducing the oxygen level to 1 per cent from 21 per cent. The person will feel a little disoriented and may feel slightly euphoric before they lose consciousness. The whole thing takes about 30 seconds. Death takes place through hypoxia and hypocapnia, oxygen and carbon dioxide deprivation, respectively. There is no panic, no choking feeling.

After taking the drug, the person will fall asleep within two to five minutes before slipping into a deep coma, followed soon afterwards by death. Sarco offers a different approach for a peaceful death, without the need for controlled substances.

SWI swissinfo.ch: What stage are you at in developing the machine and making it available for use?

P.N.: Last year, we sought senior advice on the legality of using Sarco in Switzerland for assisted dying and were pleased when the Sarco suicide capsule ‘passes legal review’ in Switzerland. 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.

There are two Sarco prototypes in existence so far, and the third Sarco is now being printed in the Netherlands. If all goes well, the third machine should be ready for operation in Switzerland in 2022.

The first Sarco is being displayed at the Museum for Sepulchral Culture in Kassel, Germany from September 2021 to February 2022. The second turned out not to be aesthetically pleasing. For that and various other reasons it’s not the best one to use.

Several of Sarco’s supplementary projects have been delayed due to the [Covid-19] pandemic. For instance, the development of a camera that allows the person to communicate with the people outside. There needs to be a recording of the person’s informed consent. This has been commissioned and the next step is to get it manufactured.

SWI swissinfo.ch: Your stated goal is to de-medicalise the dying process. What does that entail?

P.N.: Currently a doctor or doctors need to be involved to prescribe the sodium pentobarbital and to confirm the person’s mental capacity. We want to remove any kind of psychiatric review from the process and allow the individual to control the method themselves.

Our aim is to develop an artificial intelligence screening system to establish the person’s mental capacity. Naturally there is a lot of scepticism, especially on the part of psychiatrists. But our original conceptual idea is that the person would do an online test and receive a code to access the Sarco.

SWI swissinfo.ch: You are based in the Netherlands. How will you potentially enter the Swiss market?

P.N.: We have been talking with various groups in Switzerland, including those we have worked with before on individual assisted suicide cases, with a view to providing Sarco for use in the country. This would be in collaboration with a local organisation.

Barring any unforeseen difficulties, we hope to be ready to make Sarco available for use in Switzerland next year. It’s been a very expensive project so far but we think we’re pretty close to implementation now.

exitinternational

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Well, I always knew that the Swiss were a practical people. I think that they have started a path that will go ever longer as the years go on.

I am not crazy about the idea of a capsule.It seems much too mechanical for my tastes. I would prefer a "recipe book", so the person who attempts to die doesn't end up as a vegetable.

1 Reply

@Phoenix32890,

I do like the idea of using nitrogen gas. It's cheap, readily available, non-polluting, and environmentally friendly. You know, as opposed to cyanide.

Quote:

...so the person who attempts to die doesn't end up as a vegetable.

A non-sentient rotting vegetable with a very short shelf life.

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@hightor,

hightor- I had gotten an early edition of "final Exit". Some years later I bought an updated version.

This edition had a drawing of a person sitting in a chair, the nitrogen bag on his head. I had such an extreme physical reaction to this picture, that I closed the book, and put it away.

Recently, I have had thoughts of rereading the book, but I can't find it!

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