The inventor of the controversial ‘Sarco’ suicide pod has vowed to bring it to Britain, after the bill to legalise assisted dying passed its final vote.
History was made yesterday in the Commons as a total of 314 MPs voted in favour of the proposal – a narrow victory that would allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards, to be assisted to end their own life.
The legislation will go to the next stage of scrutiny in the House of Lords but the bill is expected to become law.
Euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke said he hoped to use his Sarco suicide capsule – dubbed the ‘Tesla of assisted dying’ – in the UK following the vote.
He received the nickname ‘Dr Death’ for facilitating the world’s first legal assisted suicides in the 1990s.
Sign up for all of the latest stories
Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens.
Nitschke told The Times: ‘As soon as we know that the final legislation is in place we’ll start enthusiastically pursuing the option of using the device in the UK.
‘We will be looking to find UK-registered doctors to assist and of course someone who wants to use it and satisfies all of the requirements under the law.
‘The doctors involved would know that this would attract attention and possible close scrutiny, which by and large most doctors are not enthusiastic about, so we’d have to find someone who’s a little crusading.’
Polls have shown the UK public is broadly in favour of legalising assisted dying.
Findings published by YouGov on the eve of the vote revealed almost three-quarters (73%) of people support the measures, with 16% opposed.
Nitschke is behind several inventions linked to euthanasia, which remain greatly controversial despite the changing attitudes across the world.
In 1995, when assisted dying was briefly legalised in Australia’s Northern, he created a suicide machine named ‘Deliverance’ by linking up his laptop to a syringe of deadly chemicals.
The doctor then followed with ‘the Coma machine’, ‘the Exit bag’ and then ‘Sarco’, an at-home pod.
The machine allows users to assist their own suicide rather than rely on an operator.
The person inside pushed a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber, causing death by suffocation.
Last September, a 64-year-old American woman became the first person to take her own life inside a ‘Sarco’ capsule at a remote woodland retreat in Switzerland.
But the use of the suicide pod was suspended shortly after as the woman was found inside with strangulation marks on her neck, and Swiss police opened an investigation into the case.
What are the main measures in the assisted dying bill?
Kim Leadbeater has said she deliberately named her proposal the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to ensure it only ever applies to people who can no longer be treated.
It would apply to people in England and Wales aged over 18 who:
- have an untreatable, inevitably progressive illness or disease and are expected to live no longer than six months
- have the mental capacity to make a decision, and a clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life
- have not been coerced or pressured by any other person into making that decision
- have made two separate declarations, signed and unsigned, about their wish to die
Two separate doctors would need to make assessments that the person is eligible, and applications would be reviewed by a panel including a senior legal figure, a psychiatrist and a social worker.
‘Periods of reflection’ – the first lasting seven days, the second lasting 14 – would be built into the process.
If the person gets to the end of the process, they would then administer the fatal substance themselves.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
