SARCO

 
   The very stylish SARCO pictured above is a streamlined coffin-like contraption, designed to assist you in committing suicide, if you choose to do so. It has been produced in Switzerland, where a lot of other well-designed products are made, and the maker of it would like it to be available globally via a 3D printed design. SARCO, I bet, is highly unlikely to make it to Canada, and not because of the current supply chain problems.

   The designer is the director of Exit International which is a group that supports euthanasia. If you are interested in that subject, and in favour of it, you will be pleased to know that SARCO makes it easier; nitrogen is slowly released into the chamber and the occupant quickly and painlessly ceases to exist. More importantly, this makes DIY dying much simpler, since one can make the choice and not need the assistance of a medical authority to administer a drug.   

   What could go wrong? Well, as a pro-euthanasia, pro-MAID supporter, I am thinking, plenty. It is highly unlikely that I will be able to saddle-up in a SARCO and not because of supply chain issues. There are many anti-MAID proponents and these anti-choice deniers are more adamant than the anti-climate change ones. I am sure that there are already many pro-lifers preparing legal briefs, arguing that if such an option is allowed, there will be a Sarco surge, propelled partially by relatives too eager to purge the planet of their irritating elderly parents. As well, government agents are likely to support Rent-A-SARCO agencies to assist in the elimination of those in public-supported facilities who are draining the public purse.

  Such things do need to be thought about and perhaps SARCO will help. One article notes that this new device "Inflames the Assisted Suicide Debate", but it also notes that:

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.”

Sources:
   If you simply type in "SARCO" in December 2021, you will find many articles, some of which suggested that Switzerland had approved the SARCO, which is not exactly the case. The article I mentioned is: "A 3-D Printed Pod Inflames the Assisted Suicide Debate," Christine Hauser, New York Times, Dec. 16, 2021. 

   More about MAID is found in my post: More Contrarian News for Old Codgers (OATS3)

  For non-Canadian readers "MAID" is an acronym for "Medical Assistance in Dying." Many are opposed to offering such assistance, including some doctors who argue that they should only be delivering MAIL - "Medical Assistance in Living. " For more see: Canada's New Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Law.

The Bonus: 
  For those of you too busy to research SARCO, it is apparently short for sarcophagus. That word you will have to look up on your own. 
  Those of you on either side of the MAID issue will be interested to know that there is a Museum for Sepulchral Culture in Germany, where they do know a lot about dying. 

                 Making Light of Heavy Things Since 2016.