The first death to come about using the Sarco capsule has reignited debate on whether assisted dying should be more tightly regulated in Switzerland. Here are some answers to the main questions. The first suicide in the Sarco capsule took place last September in a forest in the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen, near the German border. The person who wanted to die, a 64-year-old American woman suffering from an immune disease, explained briefly in a video recording why she wanted to end her life. She then sat down in the capsule and when the system was ready, pressed the button. Minutes later she was dead. This is how the scene was later described by a photographer from the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, who witnessed the suicide together with members of the assisted-dying organisation The Last Resort. Philipp Nitschke, right-to-die activist and inventor of the capsule, followed the happenings from Germany. This enabled him to escape arrest, unlike those present at the location. Already ...
