Philip Nitschke

Philip Nitschke

Philip Nitschke is the founder and director of Exit International.

A former medical doctor with a PhD in experimental physics, in 1996 Philip helped four of his terminally ill patients to die using Australia’s Rights of the Terminally Ill Act.

Through his work at Exit International, Philip has designed several end of life machines including the CoGen and the Destiny

The Deliverance Machine (used in the Northern Territory by his patients in 1996) is on display in the British Science Museum in London.

In December 2023, Philip appeared as an expert witness for the defense in the application for a stay of execution by nitrogen hypoxia of Kenny Smith in Alabama, USA.

Philip’s testimony has direct relevance to the Sarco Project in that it explains the fundamentals of death by nitrogen hypoxia.

For more information, please visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Nitschke

Sarco @ NVVE 50th Birthday, 2023

Sarco @ NVVE 50th Birthday, 2023

Sarco Pod Promises a Humane Death within 5 to 10 Minutes

The Sarco Pod Sarco Pod Promises a Humane Death within 5 to 10 Minutes reports De Volkskrant.

The Sarco is viewed intently at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Dutch Society for a Voluntary End of Life (NVVE), 2 June 2023.

Without hesitation, he stretches out on the black cushions of the Sarco Pod, a futuristic machine some call a suicide coffin. The man folds his hands solemnly over his abdomen. Then the lid closes. Is this it, then?

No, he does not press the red blinking button to start the process by which nitrogen is added to the airtight capsule and the oxygen content drops from 21 to 1 percent within 30 seconds. Nor can he, because this is a demonstration model.

Then he knocks on the window – he wants out. ‘I found it terrifying,’ says Berd Stapelkamp (75) a moment later.

‘I’m claustrophobic and wanted to know what it’s like to lie in it. As a challenge. With a chuckle, “I didn’t know how fast to get out again!

‘My life, my end’

Stapelkamp is a longtime member of the Dutch Association for a Voluntary End of Life (NVVE), which celebrates its 50th anniversary Friday. In the halls of Gooiland in Hilversum, there will be lectures on living wills, a conversation about death in 2073 (when the NVVE celebrates its 100th anniversary) and a theater play about euthanasia titled “My life, my end!

The Sarco Pod is also part of the program and is gleaming in the main hall. The audience – without exception graying or balding – shuffles around it in fascination. Despite his claustrophobic experience, Stapelkamp is enthusiastic about the device, which promises a peaceful death within five to 10 minutes.

‘For a certain category of people who can’t get euthanasia and don’t want to resort to gruesome methods, this is a wonderful solution,’ he says. ‘It’s painless, there are no cumbersome procedures ánd you don’t have to burden others with it. They just have to lift you out.’

Although Stapelkamp is still in good health, he is actively dealing with the ever-approaching death. He dislikes the prospect of decay; he wants to be able to decide for himself when he dies. ‘The other day I met my new family doctor.

My first question was: how do you feel about euthanasia?

At home, he already has the drugs lying around, should a doctor still fail.

‘Middel X,’ he says, referring to the chemical promoted by the Coöperatie Laatste Wil (CLW) as a humane means of suicide. That idea gives peace of mind, he says.

‘One of the options’

Not everyone is so well prepared on this day, but almost all those present, especially from the baby boomer generation, share the belief that they may decide their own end, in complete autonomy.

‘They grew up with the idea of being the master of their own belly,’ says NVVE chairman Fransien van ter Beek. ‘And now they want an end of life in their own control.’

Many here have a similar experience: they have seen friends or family die in a terrible way and want to prevent that themselves. ‘I’ve seen up close how someone stopped eating and drinking,’ says Annie Mets (66). ‘That’s horrible. It can take a few weeks.’

She has been a member for 10 years and is seeing the Sarco for the first time. ‘I see it as one of the options, yes, should it come to that.’

Philip Nitschke, the Australian inventor of the Sarco, watches people react to his creation. ‘When I suggested the idea in Switzerland a few years ago, someone said to me: no one in Europe will use a device that will kill you by gas. The association with the Holocaust would be too strong. That doesn’t seem to be so bad after all.

Nitschke (75) emigrated to the Netherlands in 2015, the country where he says there is the most progressive thinking about the end of life. Since then, he has been fighting for more information about self-chosen death. He sells a very popular handbook describing methods of suicide and collects documentation on the subject worldwide.

The Sarco Pod Promises a Humane Death within 5 to 10 Minutes

Since he launched the Sarco as a concept in 2017, he says he receives a daily request from someone around the world to use the device. The plastic sarcophagus should eventually be able to be 3D printed by anyone who wants it. Nitschke: “We put the software online for free. There is also no patent on the design. I have no commercial motive whatsoever.’

Three questions

The third prototype was made in Rotterdam by Iranian designer Javid Jooshesh. ‘We will test on Monday whether everything works,’ says Nitschke. ‘We measure how the oxygen content goes back. And we measure the temperature, pure nitrogen is very cold. It should feel like a cool breeze. I also lie down in it myself – with oxygen in my nose – to experience the sensation.’

It’s an end he says is similar to death when cabin pressure suddenly drops on an airplane and you don’t grab the oxygen mask fast enough. ‘From people who have survived that, we know it gives a slightly euphoric and confused feeling. It doesn’t feel like suffocation. You just fall away.

He plans to test the device on people in Switzerland. There, there is no ban on assisted suicide, as there is in the Netherlands. ‘

We think it should succeed legally, hopefully this year. All you have to do as a patient is answer three questions to determine your presence of mind. Who are you? Where are you? And do you know what happens when you push the red button?’

After that, Nitschke says. ‘You can place the Sarco anywhere, for example overlooking Lake Geneva. You lie down, close the flap, wave a bit more and then press the button.

 

Sarco @ Login 2023

Sarco @ Login 2023

Sarco goes to Login 2023 @ Vilnius, Lithuania (May 2023)

In May 2023, Philip Nitschke presented a keynote address at the future tech conference Login2023 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

As soon as this presentation is available online, the link shall be posted here.

 LOGIN1

 

 

Sarco Project – August 2022 Update

Sarco Project – August 2022 Update

Sarco Project – August 2022 Update

The Sarco Project is an integrated plan to use new technologies to alter the experience of death. The goal is to place the person who wishes to die center stage with unrestricted control of the process. In particular the project aims to remove any need for any specialized or medical involvement.

There are several components to the Project:

  •  Construction of a 3D printed Sarco to provides a peaceful hypoxic death
  • Programming of Sarco Raspberry Pi software to allow access to the machine
  • Development of AI screening to ensure those seeking access have mental capacity.
  • Development of an implantable switch for those anticipating mental capacity loss.

This update provides information on the current state of each of these components.

  • Construction of the 3D printed Sarco

Sarco#1 and Sarco #2 have been 3D printed but are non-functioning. Sarco #1 will be towed to Geneva on a special trailer in mid September and go on public display as part of OpenEnd 2 “Renegotiation” held @ Cimetiere des Rios opening Thurs Sept 15.

Lessons learnt in the construction of #1 & #2 have been incorporated into the production of Sarco #3 which is the device to be used in Switzerland. Sarco #3 has been printed in Rotterdam and is currently being assembled. Some of the specialised components needed in construction are yet to be delivered – eg the vacuum moulded Perspex canopy and cantilever hinge mechanism. Once assembled the unit will receive professional finishing before being moved to our Hillegom laboratory where instrument testing, imaging using a thermal camera, and gas analysis will take place. This is expected to be completed by late October and the machine will be available for inspection at this time.

  • Programming of Sarco Raspberry Pi software to allow access to the machine

Control software that requires the person seeking to use Sarco to answer 3 basic questions before activation has been written for the incorporated Raspberry Pi processor. The questions that need to be answered are 1) Who are you? 2) Where are you? and 3) Do you know what will happen when you press the activation button inside Sarco? Answers are provided verbally and by text and recorded before relay activation of Sarco power takes place. A number of programming errors have delayed completion of this part of the project although this should be resolved by the end of September. •

  • Development of AI screening to ensure those seeking access have mental capacity

This is considered an essential part of Sarco Project as it offers the possibility of removing the need for a medical professional to carry out the essential assessment of mental capacity in a person seeking death. The goal is to develop the test that will provide a functioning 4 digit key that will give 24 hours of access to the Sarco startup.

There has been very little support for the concept of AI assessment from the large number of psychiatrists contacted for advice on this project, indeed considerable skepticism has been expressed. Some preliminary programming has begun based on advice from experienced AI developers and some form of elemental screen incorporating a mini mental state cognitive assessment and a set of questions to assess insight will be functioning in 2023.

The absence of this part of Sarco project will not delay the planned use of the device. In the initial stage the assessment of mental capacity will be carried out by the more traditional means, using psychiatric review.

  • Development of an implantable switch for those anticipating mental capacity loss.

This part of the project is essential for those who are experiencing a real or expected decline in mental capacity from dementia or other disease. At present the only strategy offered to address this is the completion of a witnessed advance directive that, in some jurisdictions, allows legal assistance to die even for those with no capacity. This is an unsatisfactory solution.

A programmed implantable switch that can be activated while one has capacity and designed to end life after a preset period, unless reset by the owner, offers an important solution. Currently the project has stalled, beset by a number of practical problems.

Two simple strategies are being pursued:

  • Programable de-activation of the auto defibrillation function of some implanted pacemakers.
  • The use of an implanted RFID chip preset to activate (for example) a Sarco.

Open End 2 – Geneva 2022

Open End 2 – Geneva 2022

In March 2022, Sarco was invited to exhibit as part of the Open End 2 Exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland.

Held at the Cimetiere des Rois (cemetary of the kings, established in 1482 for those who died from the plague), Open End seeks to provoke discussion about ‘the flaws of human nature, between avarice and anxiety about finitude, sometimes opening up new sustainable horizons, progress is also the field of all possibilities’.

The theme of Open End 2 concerns the confrontation between energy-intensive technologies and the collapse of resources, and chooses the dual theme of immortality and the environment.

At the heart of the race towards modernity, contradictory movements collide. Huge investments are feeding the new ultra-technological sectors, capable of both the best and the worst.

It is clear why Sarco – with its futuristic, forward-looking aesthetic – has been invited for exhibition.

The exhibition opens to the public on Friday 16 September and will run until 31 January 2023.

Further details (in French) at OpenEnd2

Nowy Theatre, Poznań Poland 2022

Nowy Theatre, Poznań Poland 2022

During April 2022, Sarco took centre stage in the play, ‘Right to Choose’ at Nowy Theatre in Poznań, Poland.

Directed by Piotr Kruszczyński, Right to Choose is a play by German playwright and lawyer, Ferdinand von Schirach who is perhaps best known for his play, Terror.

Titled Gott in its native German, ‘Right to Choose’ takes as its starting point the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court from February 2020, that everyone has the right to a self-determined death.

With the help of experts, the play’s Ethics Council discusses the question of whether doctors have to fulfill the request of a suicidal patient.

As in Brecht’s Epic Theater, it is said the audience should form an opinion.

This Kruszczyński production is the Polish premiere of the play, which has proven popular in European theaters and TV stations.

The Polish cast include: Bożena Borowska-Kropielnicka, Antonina Choroszy , Marta Herman, Małgorzata Łodej-Stachowiak, Daniela Popławska, Agnieszka Rożańska, Maria Rybarczyk playing the roles of experts standing before the Ethics Committee, with Aleksander Machalica in the main role as the participant in question.

Sarco creator, Philip Nitschke outside the Nowy Theatre, Poznan, July 2022

 

A 3-D Printed Pod Inflames the Assisted Suicide Debate

A 3-D Printed Pod Inflames the Assisted Suicide Debate

The pod, known as Sarco, was conceived as a way for people to end their lives without involving a doctor. A plan to introduce it in Switzerland has raised alarm even among right-to-die advocates.

A Sarco prototype at Venice Design in 2019. Its inventor,Dr. Philip Nitschke, says it offers people a way to end their lives painlessly and without a doctor’s help, but some right-to-die supporters said they found it appalling.
Credit…Sarco

For years, a sleek, pod-shaped suicide machine called Sarco has been a striking sight at museums and funeral conventions.

Now the creator of the pod is saying he is ready to take it beyond the showroom and make it available for 3-D printing next year in Switzerland, which has permissive laws on voluntary assisted suicide.

The announcement by the inventor, Dr. Philip Nitschke, has unsettled even some of the most ardent right-to-die advocates, inflaming the debate.

Dr. Nitschke, an Australian doctor who has been a supporter of assisted voluntary suicide for decades, said this month that he hoped to start sharing the 3-D printing program for the machine, which is designed to cause death as it fills with nitrogen, replacing the oxygen inside.

 

He said he was aiming to introduce it in Switzerland in early 2022 after a lawyer hired by his nonprofit organization, Exit International, found no conflict with Swiss law. But the announcement, which he made in interviews and on the organization’s website, added to a growing debate over whether the online distribution of suicide information and materials encourages people to end their own lives when they might not otherwise seek to do so.

Dr. Duckworth, who has pressed for safe laws emphasizing personal choice and control of the dying process, added that he could not support it, “nor am I aware of any credible assisted-dying campaigner who does.” Sarco, he said in an interview, would “deprive users of human connection and replace it with a lonely virtual-reality experience.”

He also raised concerns about safety. “What if it is accessed by someone not in their right mind?” he said. “Or a child? Or if it is used to abuse others? What if it doesn’t result in immediate or peaceful death and the individual is left alone without any recourse to call for help?”

Dr. Charles D. Blanke, an oncologist and a professor at the OHSU Knight Cancer Center in Portland, Ore., who has studied data on physician-assisted dying, said breathing in nitrogen causes a rapid death. But he cautioned that it is untested, including as an alternative to lethal injection in capital punishment.
 

“It is not at all clear that nitrogen inhalation would bring a peaceful death,” he said, contrary to Dr. Nitschke’s claim that death comes quickly after a brief euphoria.

The law in Switzerland, where about 1,300 people sought help from right-to-die organizations in 2020, requires confirmation that people seeking to end their own lives are of sound mind and reached the decision without pressure from anyone with “selfish” motives. Then a doctor writes a prescription for sodium pentobarbital, the lethal medication used there.

Sarco would bypass that step because it does not require a prescription for a drug.

Some Swiss right-to-die organizations have distanced themselves from Sarco. Exit, which offers living wills, counseling and end-of-life care, and is unaffiliated with Dr. Nitschke’s similarly named nonprofit, said it does not see Sarco as an alternative to physician-assisted suicide. Another group, Lifecircle, said “there is no human warmth with this method.”

Dignitas, a clinic near Zurich, said sodium pentobarbital “is approved and supported by the vast majority of the public and politics.” Pegasos Swiss Association said it was in discussion with the Sarco team but wanted further clarification about the device.

Others who have studied the ethics of voluntary assisted suicide welcomed the debate that Sarco has inspired. Thaddeus Pope, a bioethicist at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minn., said the debate about Sarco could lead to a new way of looking at end-of-life options, including by legislators.

“That might be bigger or more important than the actual Sarco itself,” he said, adding that Dr. Nitschke was “illustrating the limitations of the medical model and forcing us to think.”

“There are a lot of people that live with illnesses or conditions that they don’t want to live with, but they don’t qualify for medically aided dying where they live,” he said. “If he really goes forward with it, this may get the nonmedical approach to hastening death some more attention.”

Dr. Nitschke, 74, has years of experience with assisted suicide. In the 1990s in Australia, he developed a machine that allowed his terminally ill patients to initiate their own deaths by administering a lethal medication with the touch of a computer key. This was the same era when Dr. Jack Kevorkian was promoting — and being prosecuted over — an assisted suicide device in the United States.

Dr. Nitschke said he was inspired to create Sarco by the death in 2012 of Tony Nicklinson, a British man who suffered from so-called locked-in syndrome and whose request for help in ending his life had been rejected by a panel of judges.

He said he had taken steps to ensure that anyone using Sarco would be doing so voluntarily. Users can initiate the nitrogen flow only after stating their name and where they are, and that they know what is about to happen. That process is filmed, he said, and a copy is provided to the coroner.

“You say goodbye to everybody and climb in,” Dr. Nitschke said. “The idea is you are going, and they are staying.”

Dr. Nitschke worked with designers in the Netherlands, where he lives, to produce a Sarco prototype in 2017 that has since been exhibited in museums and funeral fairs in Amsterdam and Venice.

Read the full article on the NYT website …

Sarco@Cube Design Museum 2020

Sarco@Cube Design Museum 2020

During 2020, Sarco was in exhibition at the Cube Design Museum in Kerkrade.

Sarco was on display in the exhibition ‘Verwacht: (Re)design Death’ which highlights ‘Dutch and international design projects related to death and the rituals surrounding it.’

The exhibition ran until February 2021.

Unfortunately, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Dutch lockdown, Cube was closed and then reopened all throughout 2020.

This is alls the more the pity as this exhibition was stunningly staged and expertly curated. Exit congratulates Cube on a sophisticated, beautiful and thought-provoking exhibition.

Cube Design Museum is at: Museumplein 2 6461 MA Kerkrade NL

Opening Night – Monday 10 February 2020

Sarco opening night 4

Sarco opening night 2

Sarco opening night 1

Coffin cakes

 

Sarco at Venice Design 2019

Visit

Portable

Portable

The concept of a capsule that could produce a rapid decrease in oxygen level, while maintaining a low CO2 level, (the conditions for a peaceful, even euphoric death) led to Sarco’s development.

Is it art or … ?

The elegant design was intended to suggest a sense of occasion: of travel to a ‘new destination’, and to dispel the ‘yuk’ factor.

Other design considerations were to devise a system that requires

  • No specialised skills or involvement.
  • No sourcing of difficult to obtain drugs.
  • No need for medical involvement eg. with the insertion of an intravenous cannula.

Those with a significant disability (eg. frailty or increasing paralysis from a disease such as MND/ ALS) would also not be disadvantaged. Activation by eye movement or voice control is anticipated.

The Sarco was inspired by UK man, Tony Nicklinson.

Suicide Machine that could be Controlled by the Blink of an Eye Sparks Euthanasia Debate‘ – The Independent, 17 April 2018.

The goal of Sarco is to remove the need for any assistance. This ensures any use of the Sarco is legal.

Coffin incorpoated

Coffin incorpoated

Sarco will be printed from a biodegradable wood amalgam and its upper part can be detached and used as a coffin.

3D Printed

3D Printed

Sarco is 3D printed and its plans will be available online.

Most office stores now offer small-scale 3D printing. There are also many cheap models you can buy for home use. However, this is a fast-changing field and it is easy to envisage that 3D print shops which print large-scale (required for Sarco) are not far off. When the technology becomes available, these stores will be everywhere and the cost will drop significantly.

What if we dared to imagine that our last day might also be one of our most exciting?

What if we had more than mere dignity to look forward to on our last day on this planet?

Russia Today

Russia Today

Tired of the old, painful and ugly suicide methods? Now you can have a “peaceful, elective and lawful death” at the press of a button with Sarco, a suicide pod – and it even comes with a built-in eco-friendly coffin.
Alongside halls filled with abstract art and video installations, browsers at the 58th Venice art Biennale can now get a sneak peak at “Sarco” – short for sarcophagus, – a sleek, portable and 3D printable machine that could help bring suicide into the 21st century.
 
Daily Star

Daily Star

As lifespans continue to lengthen, rules around euthanasia are likely to relax. And as they do so, entrepreneurs will be scrambling to offer the most painless and dignified endings.

Australian euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke is ahead of the curve with the sleek and elegant Sarco. The Sarco (short for Sarcophagus) is a futuristic Star Trek coffin that, he says, will “allow rational adults the option of a peaceful, elective and lawful death in an elegant and stylish environment”.

A button on the inside of the pod allows the user to flood the enclosure with nitrogen. The effect is, according to Nitschke, a “slightly tipsy” feeling that soon results in a painless death.

Read the full Article on Dailystar.co.uk

Philip Nitschke’s 3D-printed “death pod” lets users die at the press of a button

Philip Nitschke’s 3D-printed “death pod” lets users die at the press of a button

Euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke has created a 3D-printed suicide machine that allows users to administer their own death in a matter of minutes.

Called Sarco, the futuristic-looking machine features a coffin-like sealed pod with transparent panels. It sits on top of a raised platform that leans at an angle.

By pressing a button on the inside of the pod the machine floods with liquid nitrogen, an unregulated substance that can be easily purchased.

This lowers the oxygen level within the capsule, making the user feel “slightly tipsy” before falling unconscious and ultimately, dying.

Read the full Article on Dezeen.com

Tribuna (Mexico)

Tribuna (Mexico)

Sarco es una maquina con forma futurista para los pacientes con enfermedades terminales, con solo un botón se acaba su vida sin dolor.

Recientemente un médico australiano publicó un dispositivo que brinda asistencia a las personas que quieren acabar con su vida de manera sencilla e indolora.

Read the full Article on tribuna.com.mx

Vice

Vice

This weekend, euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke will unveil his most ambitious death machine yet, the “Sarco”.

This weekend in Venice, the euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke will unveil his most ambitious death machine yet. The 3-D printed “Sarco” (short for sarcophagus) will use nitrogen to provide a quick and peaceful death to any adult of sound mind who wants one. It’s the culmination of a 20-year journey that began when Nitschke invented the “Deliverance” machine – a device that allowed patients to use their laptop to self-administer a lethal injection.

Read the full Article on Vice.com

The Age

The Age

Australian euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke is about to unveil his new high-tech death machine in Venice and says people are already lining up to use it.

Dr Nitschke says the Sarco – short for sarcophagus – reinvents the experience of elected deaths.

And given it’s made using 3D printers, it could soon help people legally end their lives in countries that lack euthanasia laws.

Read the full article on theage.com

Independent

Independent

Dr Philip Nitschke – dubbed Dr Death – tells The Independent his device is not intended to glamourise the idea of a person taking their own life.

Opponents of euthanasia have expressed concern at the creation of a “suicide machine”, which has been developed by Dr Philip Nitschke.

The well-known advocate of individuals’ right to die has regularly caused controversy by assisting what he calls “rational suicides”.

Read the full Article on independent.co.uk

The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post

Talk about “dying with dignity” has grown to a calamitous pitch in recent years. “Right to die” groups vie for supremacy, trying to show who can make the dying experience the least degrading. Who can replace the utter macabre-ness of the necessity of death with something more palatable.

In this reclamation of death ― a change from the silence of the past decades, when the subject was even hidden from children ― the focus on dignity is an admirable, yet somewhat clumsy, catch-all for how we should all want to die.

Read the full Article on huffpost.com

The Guardian

The Guardian

Euthanasia advocate displays ‘Sarco’, a pod that fills with nitrogen, which he hopes will one day be available as a 3D-printable device.

A controversial suicide pod that enables its occupant to kill themselves at the press of a button went on display at an Amsterdam funeral show on Saturday.

Read the full Article on theguardian.com

The Washington Post

The Washington Post

It is not the most cheerful offering. But euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke says he is about to revolutionize how we die.

At a funeral fair in Amsterdam last week, he showed off his “suicide machine.” The “Sarco,” short for sarcophagus, is designed to “provide people with a death when they wish to die,” Nitschke, an Australian national, told the news agency Agence France-Presse. It comes with a detachable coffin and a hookup for a nitrogen container.

Read the full article on washingtonpost.com

Vice

Vice

“After a minute and a half, you feel disoriented. In five minutes, you’re gone.”

In the Netherlands, euthanasia was written into the law in 2001. The law went into effect in 2002, which makes the country one of the most progressive when it comes to euthanasia. In 1996, Philip Nitschke became the first doctor to legally administer a deadly injection to one of his patients. In the international debate surrounding the topic of euthanasia, he is one of its most well-known and controversial proponents.

Read the full Article on Vice.com

Newsweek

Newsweek

Dr. Philip Nitschke considers himself the Elon Musk of assisted suicide—and his latest death machine, the Sarco, is his Tesla.

Newsweek spoke with the 70-year-old doctor immediately after the state of Victoria in Australia, his home country, voted this week to legalize euthanasia. Many are billing this as the first law of this nature Down Under, though Nitschke performed his first assisted death in 1996, during a brief period of legality in the country’s Northern Territory.

Read the full Article on Newsweek.com