Dear Dr. Death,
I am writing in response to your statements regarding the Sarco (short for Sarcophagus): the 3D printed “death pod”. Although it remains a porotype, you envision a future where the Sarco is a universal tool of dignified and euphoric euthanasia.
Currently, there are few options for assisted suicide. Lethal injection administered medical professionals is legal in several states and countries abroad for patients with short and grueling life expectancies. There are strict procedures in place to ensure the patient is ready for such a choice.
It is fundamentally true — when you say death is universally inevitable. No one is immortal. It is also true — and concerning when you point out that impending death is harrowing and macabre. Not only do family members suffer witnessing death (especially slow, painful death), the individual approaching the undiscovered country — in which no traveler returns, faces acute terror. Your desire, Dr. Death, to soothe our dire fear is commendable, and your initiative to create a climate of acceptance in the shadow of death — rather than denial — is admirable. I agree that advocacy for peaceful voluntary euthanasia is important, within reason, and only to terminally ill patients.
The Sacro aims to create a painless, procurable, portable passage for passing. In your statement, you imagine choice in the location of your death. You ask us to hear the roaring waters below a cliff, feel the sunset against our skin, and smell the salt of the earth before clambering into a sealed off pod, and within a minute, fade into nothing. Certainly futuristic, this ideal would revolutionize suicide. Death without fear is a lovely sentiment — far from feeling lungs fill with water or the collapse of organs.
In your workshops, you say with a grin: “You’re only going to die once, so why not have the best?” Usually, a nervous group laugh ensues, does it not? The idea of a “euphoric” death is inciting, almost sickeningly so. Your vision culminates with pods printed for any “rational” adult who has “life experience”. When their quality of life, as you say, “turns bad”, they can choose to end it — only if they empty their bank accounts to do so (I mean, if they are dead they won’t need that money anyway, right?).
Your “plan” is to have a short online quiz to determine your mental “rationality”, only after all of that effort does it chuck a four-digit kill code at you to use at your leisure. This is unnerving, to say the least, disgustingly offhand to say the most.
You assume, like most of us do, that power of choice is universally fruitful. This is untrue. What is also untrue, is your idea of a universal dignity. Is it dignified to quickly and easily kill yourself to the family who didn’t know you had such easy access to such a tool? Is it dignified to the child you once were and could be again to remove any future, past, and present for a couple minutes of intoxication?
Is it dignified to shut yourself off from the atmosphere, and lay down in a tight tube to await asphyxiation? What if you change your mind at the last second, as most surviving jumpers can attest to? At least The Sarco can be customized to be floral, or mauve, or even crushed velvet! Not to mention the bottom can drop out into your own coffin! Two birds, one stone!
Imagine, having a funeral where you die on the altar. Perhaps knowing you have a sound way out sounds peaceful to the person committing suicide, but I can’t help but feel the terror of anybody watching — knowing that they could possibly save the life that is being snuffed out right before them.
What would happen if you changed your mind, and your screams for help were deafened by the glass separating you from reality?
What would happen if a passionate someone upended the pod in a desperate attempt to free their loved one? Would the gas seep out? Would a larger number of people kill themselves simply because you say they should?
Should suicide be a singular, universal, personal decision, and right?
I don’t think so.
Isn’t anyone who is at risk for suicide considered irrational? Aren’t they considered a danger to themselves and others, thus detained in a hospital?
Is it possible, that by making this product available to vulnerable people, you could be guilty of manslaughter?
You’re right, nobody wants to talk about death because it’s the hardest thing to talk about. I think your dialogue for choice in death is important, and so is your work to eradicate the taboo of death. However, the implementation and regulation of The Sarco is not emphasized (as it should be), and universal access to such a device is unethical. If death were as easy and delightful as you make it sound, I’d expect more people with suicidal ideation will follow through — and never live to see the end of their depression.
Sincerely,
Jennet Kaya
