Once inside the sealed chamber of the futuristic Sarco “suicide pod” the woman was given an eerie command: “If you want to die, press this button.” 

So she did, and the chamber flooded with nitrogen gas. Her oxygen levels plummeted, causing her to pass out. She was dead within minutes.  

The woman, who has yet to be identified, was 64 years old. An American suffering from a severely compromised immune system, she’d flown to Switzerland to obtain an assisted suicide using the hideously sleek invention, which had been placed beneath a canopy of trees in the Swiss woodlands.  

Her death earlier last week marks the first time someone is known to have used the pod for its intended purposes. Reports indicate she was suffering from a very serious illness for at least two years. Switzerland is one of the few countries in the world where foreigners can travel for the purpose of obtaining an assisted suicide.  

Reacting to the news of the Sarco’s inaugural usage, Bishop Felix Gmür of Basel, president of the Swiss bishops’ conference, told Swiss media the pod was “dangerous” because it “makes suicide too easy to access.” 

The Catholic Church teaches that suicide, whether assisted by a physician to reduce suffering or as an expression of individual autonomy, is a grave moral evil.   

“Intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder,” reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. Suicide is seriously contrary to justice, hope, and charity. It is forbidden by the fifth commandment.” 

Local authorities also had a negative reaction. Immediately following the announcement of Sarco’s inaugural usage, made to the Swiss press by the pod’s inventor, Philip Nitschke, Swiss police arrived at the scene and seized the Sarco. Several arrests were made of individuals associated with The Last Resort, a non-profit that advocates for assisted suicide in Switzerland, which had supervised the woman’s death.   

Though assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942 — Swiss law permits assisted suicide provided that the individual ends their life without any outside help and that those involved in the process have no personal gain in mind — the Sarco pod runs afoul of Swiss law, according to interior minister Élisabeth Baume-Schneider.  

“The Sarco suicide capsule is not legal in two respects,” Baume-Schneider recently said at the National Council. “On one hand, it does not fulfill the demands of the product safety law, and as such, must not be brought into circulation. On the other hand, the corresponding use of nitrogen is not compatible with the article on purpose in the chemicals law.” 

Nitschke, who claims to have monitored the woman’s suicide from across the German border through a heart rate and oxygen monitor, as well as from a camera inside the device, said, “When she entered the Sarco, she almost immediately pressed the button. She didn't say anything. She really wanted to die. My estimate is that she lost consciousness within two minutes and that she died after five minutes. We saw jerky, small twitches of the muscles in her arms, but she was probably already unconscious by then. It looked exactly how we expected it to look.”

When reached for comment, a spokesperson forThe Last Resort told the Register that Nitschke was withholding comment until Swiss authorities determined whether the group’s four detained members would be charged. 

In the moments before entering the pod, the woman reportedly issued an oral statement to Fiona Stewart, a lawyer and co-director of The Last Resort, in which she confirmed her wish to die, and that she’d had this wish since being diagnosed with her undisclosed condition, which caused her severe pain.  

The woman was also consulted by a psychiatrist who deemed her capable of making the decision. It has been reported that she had no history of mental illness.  

Nitschke has boasted in the past that his product represents a giant leap forward in the “death with dignity” movement, which has seen significant gains in nations across the West in recent decades, including in the U.S., in which 11 states have legalized physician-assisted suicide. In three more states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York — laws to allow physician-assisted suicide have been introduced in the state legislature.  

But for Nitschke, legalized physician-assisted suicide falls short of his ultimate vision, in which assisted suicides are “de-medicalized,” meaning they can be obtained without doctors and psychiatrists, difficult-to-procure drugs, or hurdles of any kind. The Sarco can be 3D printed, and its plans are available on Exit International’s website. When the technology becomes available for large-scale printing, the group believes its product will become readily available to anyone.  

“It’s not just some medical privilege for the very sick,” said Nitschke of the right to terminate one’s own life this summer. “It’s a fundamental human right. If you’ve got the precious gift of life, you should be able to gift that gift away at the time of your choosing.”  

For Father Thomas Petri, President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, Nitschke’s comment is a sad and depraved reversal of what we mean by the gift of life. 

“Life and our existence is God’s, who grants it to whom He wills. It is not for us to discard it as we please,” he told the Register. “Moreover, from a simply human perspective this is a slippery slope to allowing anyone to commit suicide easily who finds their lives difficult for whatever reason. I’m also concerned about the moral pressure that might be applied to an ill person to commit this 'assisted' suicide."

Last year, Pope Francis condemned euthanasia while speaking with journalists aboard the papal plane. 

“You don’t play with life, neither at the beginning nor at the end,” he said. “It is not played with! Whether it is the law not to let the child grow in the mother’s womb or the law of euthanasia in disease and old age. I am not saying it is a faith thing, but it is a human thing: There is bad compassion.”