Advocacy groups behind a so-called suicide capsule said Sunday they have suspended the process of taking applications to use it — which numbered over 370 last month — as a criminal investigation into its first use in Switzerland is completed.
The president of Switzerland-based The Last Resort, Florian Willet, is being held in pretrial detention, said the group and Exit International, an affiliate founded in Australia over a quarter century ago.
Swiss police arrested Willet and several other people following the death of an unidentified 64-year-old woman from the U.S. Midwest who on Sept. 23 became the first person to use the device, known as the “Sarco,” in a forest in the northern Schaffhausen region near the German border.
What if the patient opting for euthanasia is a tetraplegic (therefore, a person that lost their ability to press buttons) whose condition emerged from an underlying disease/condition that has no cure for the foreseeable future and that’s why they chose euthanasia instead of suffering? How such person is even supposed to “press the button”? In this hypothetical example, I’m considering that such person is capable of explicit consent through speech before several witnesses and some judge or their lawful representative, saying something like “I, John Doe, as an exertion of my human right imbued free will, I hereby authorize my euthanasia because such-and-such and whatsoever… being done by M.D. Luke Doe as an anesthesiologist professional authorized by me to do so”.
I mean, the very purpose of the right of euthanasia is to consider this right especially for people who’re painfully suffering from irreversible conditions, such as terminal diseases, conditions that bring such unbearable suffering for those who have them, although I’m more inclined to the thought that “Life should be a right to everyone, but shouldn’t be an obligation nor a duty to anyone” independent of any underlying conditions. In any case (be it euthanasia only for terminal diseases or euthanasia for anyone who wants it), of course explicit consent is a must, be it verbal or handwritten, and I think that the long bureaucracy is enough for the patient to authorize any assisted euthanasia.
If they are capable of giving consent, they are capable of activating the system themselves.
You’re thinking of a big red push button, but a button can be a pad that you bite down on, or a eye twitch activated electrode, or any number of things.
The important thing is they initiate the process themselves, so that they have the option to withdraw consent as easily as they gave it.
True consent is not immutable.