Swiss assisted suicide leader dies while climbing Mount Fuji

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Mount Fuji Japan

Bernhard Sutter, who was the leader of the  Exit assisted suicide/euthanasia group recently died in Japan while climbing Mount Fuji

Sutter was a colleague of Philip Nitschke, the death activist who developed the Exit Bag and the Sarco Pod as well as promoted suicide substances on the internet.

Elizabeth Beattie reported on July 23, 2026 for The Japan Times that:

The managing director of one of Switzerland’s most prominent euthanasia firms died while climbing Mount Fuji during a family vacation.

Bernhard Sutter, 58, collapsed while ascending Japan’s tallest mountain with his son via the Fujinomiya route – the shortest, most direct way up the mountain. At around 3,010 meters above sea level, he felt unwell and stopped at a mountain hut, where he lost consciousness and stopped breathing.

The Japan Times reported that Sutter was involved with assisted suicide since 2007.

Sutter, who lived in Zurich with his family, had since 2015 worked as the managing director of the largest assisted dying firm in Switzerland, Exit. He joined the firm in 2007.

Philip Nitschke, the director of Exit International and the developer of suicide devices, such as the Sarco pod and the Exit bag, offered condolences to Sutter's wife and family stating that he had known Bernhard for more than 15 years and that Sutter was instrumental in launching the German edition of Nitschke's suicide instructions Handbook in 2011.

I personally remember meeting Sutter many years ago in Switzerland when I attended a euthanasia conference organized by World Federation of Right to Die Societies.

EPC offers condolences to the family and friends of Bernhard Sutter, but we also mourn the many people who died with the assistance of Sutter and his staff. Many people have been abandoned to death under the guise of compassion.

Lucerne Switzerland will expand assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Lucerne Switzerland

More bad news from Switzerland.

Swissinfo news reported that assisted suicide, which is currently done in assisted suicide clinics in Switzerland, will be soon done in hospitals and retirement homes in the Swiss Canton of Lucerne.

The Swissinfo article states that the proposal to extend assisted suicide to hospitals and retirement homes was introduced by Sara Muff from the centre-left Social Democratic Party and passed by 81 votes to 27. 

This is a significant change in Swiss assisted suicide policy and will likely expand the number of assisted suicide deaths by normalizing assisted suicide as a medical act

On March 3, 2026; I reported that the Swiss Exit suicide group 2025 death data indicated a 15% increase from 2024. Exit is only one of the assisted suicide groups in Switzerland.

On February 2, 2026; I reported that Zurich Switzerland will require every care home to provide assisted suicide.

Doctors should never be given the right in law to be directly involved with killing their patients. This is a dangerous policy that leads to the devaluation of human life and the normalization of suicide.

Swiss assisted suicide for people who are not dying.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Swiss Exit suicide group published their 2025 death data indicating a 15% increase from 2024. An article published by Swissinfo on March 2, 2026 stated:

In 2025, 1,421 people made use of Exit Switzerland's services in the German and Italian-speaking parts of the country. This is higher than in 2024, when 1,235 cases of assisted suicide were registered.

The article continued:

As has been the case for many years, more women (818) than men (603) used Exit to end their lives.

There was also a significant increase in the number of assisted suicide deaths of people who are not dying. Swissinfo reported:

According to its annual report, 32% of people who resorted to assisted suicide had terminal cancer, which corresponds to 461 cases. There is also a significant number of elderly people with multiple disorders (polymorbidity) who opted for an assisted death: last year there were 326 cases (23% of the total), compared to 205 in 2024.

Polymorbidity refers to people who are not dying but are approved for assisted suicide based on multiple health concerns. For instance, a sore back and chronic depression.

According to the data there were 326 (23%) who were poisoned to death for polymorbidity in 2025 and 205 (less than 17%) in 2024.

It is concerning that almost 58% (818) of the Exit assisted suicide deaths are women but when you consider the massive increase in deaths of people based on polymorbidity then one must ask if Exit has a misogynistic attitude?

Remember, Exit is only one of the assisted suicide groups in Switzerland.

More information on Switzerland's assisted suicide law:

• Zurich Switzerland will require every care home provide assisted suicide (Read).
• Swiss suicide clinic under fire after deaths without a medical condition (Read).
• Joint elder suicide in Switzerland to avoid Widowhood (Read).
• Irish woman learns of mother's assisted suicide death through What's App (Read).
• Suicide pushers celebrate elder suicides in Swiss Death clinics (Read).
• Elder suicide in Switzerland has quadrupled in 25 years (Read).
  

Euthanasia group creating a device to suffocate people to death.

Warning: This article contains suicide information. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, contact a suicide helpline. In Canada (Link). In America (Link).

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

This is not a nice article but the NL Times reported on November 19, 2025 about a new direction for Exit International and Coöperatie Laatste Wil (CLW). Both of these organizations are part of the euthanasia lobby.

The NL Times article explained that the new suicide technique, called the 'Kairos Killar' (KK), works by two inflatable balloons pressing against the ... in the neck, causing the wearer to lose consciousness and suffocate to death.

Philip Nitschke, who lost his Australian medical license based on complaints of professional misconduct and unprofessional conduct related to counselling and aiding suicide now lives in the Netherlands. Nitshcke is known for developing the Sarco suicide pod that was first used by Nitschke in September, 2024 in Switzerland. In the past, Nitschke also developed the Exit Bag.

Nitschke announced in the Exit International year-end blog article that prototypes for the KK have been developed and Nitschke is also developing the Double Sarco Pod.

KK is a similar concept to the new organ donation method known as Normothermic Regional Perfusion which violates the Dead Donor Rule. NRP is done by cutting off the blood flow to the brain, after the heart has stopped beating, then declaring the donor to be brain dead and then restarting the heart to ensure that the organs are healthy for donation.

The euthanasia lobby uses compassion, choice and autonomy as monikers but in reality they are focused on killing people. Nitschke and Exit International have developed killing techniques for the euthanasia lobby for many years including poison substances that they have sold and distributed on the internet.

Suicide Pushers Celebrate Elderly Suicides in Swiss Death Clinics

This article was published by National Review online on July 14, 2025.

By Wesley J Smith

Geriatric suicides used to be considered a tragedy. But these days, increasingly, they are celebrated — whether Compassion and Choices (formerly, the more honestly named Hemlock Society) teaching elderly people to starve themselves to death (VSED), joint lethal jabs of aged married couples in places like the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada, or suicides facilitated at Swiss death clinics.

These clinics are proud of their toll. One Swiss clinic even “prioritizes people who are elderly but not seriously ill,” while others willingly engage in geriatric assisted suicide of depressed elders if they have other conditions. From the odious Exit International’s newsletter:

“Conscious suicides are different from others,” says Jean-Jacques Bise, Co-President of Exit in French-speaking Switzerland.

The figures from RTS suggest that the two types of suicide could be linked.

In very old people, the statistical curves of the two types of suicide cross at the beginning of the 2010s, an indication that from then on there was a shift from unaccompanied to accompanied suicides.

Exit has been offering its members assisted suicide since 1982.

Since 2014, people suffering from multiple illnesses without imminent danger to their lives have also been able to take advantage of this service, provided they are fully capable of judgement.

“We don’t help people who are tired of life,” emphasises Jean-Jacques Bise from Exit.

Is it possible to make use of Exit in cases of depression?

Yes, says Bise, but if a mentally ill person is helped to die, “then because of the illness, not because of the depression”.

Suicide prevention? What’s that?

This is what we are becoming: Pro–some suicides. What a cultural tragedy.

More articles about Switzerland assisted suicide (Articles Link).

Swiss police make arrests related to Sarco death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kate Connelly reported for the Guardian on September 24 that Swiss police made several arrests related to a Sarco suicide death. A 64-year old American woman died in the town of Merishausen Switzerland. Connelly wrote:

Swiss police say they have opened a criminal investigation and arrested several people after the suspected death of a woman in a so-called suicide capsule.

According to local reports, the capsule, named the Sarco Pod by its inventor, was used for the first time on Monday afternoon in a forest close to the German border in the Swiss town of Merishausen.

The Swiss government indicated that Sarco is not compatible with Swiss Law. Swissinfo reported on September 24:

The Sarco suicide capsule – that claims to provide assisted suicide at the touch of a button – does not comply with the law, Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider told the House of Representatives on Monday.

Firstly, the capsule does not meet the requirements of product safety legislation and cannot therefore be placed on the market, the minister explained in response to a parliamentarian’s question. Furthermore, the use of nitrogen in the capsule is not compatible with the objective of the law on chemical products.

When it comes to product safety law, jurisdiction must be clarified on a case-by-case basis, said Baume-Schneider. On the other hand, the cantons are responsible for cases where nitrogen is not used in accordance with the regulations.

Exit International, an organization that is operated by Philip Nitschke, is attempting to expand the scope of the Swiss assisted suicide law.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will closely follow this case.

Previous articles:

• Sarco claims its first victim (Link).
• Sarco selling murder suicide (Link).

Suicide capsule claims its first victim.

This article was published by National Review online on September 24, 2024

By Wesley J Smith

The ghoulish Australian “doctor” Philip Nitschke has long been obsessed with making suicide readily available to anyone who wants to die. Indeed, years ago, he told NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez that he wanted what he called “peaceful” suicide pills sold in supermarkets, even to “troubled teens.”

Nitschke also sold plastic suicide bags in Australia (which I helped cause to be outlawed when I busted him for his ghoulishness in the national media there in 2001). Subsequently, he traveled the world teaching how-to-commit-suicide classes and starred at international death-movement conventions. Awful.

More recently, Nitschke made world headlines in the assisted-suicide-boosting media for inventing a “suicide capsule” that asphyxiates the suicidal person with nitrogen. At first, Swiss authorities said it would be legal, and then they backtracked.

Philip Nitschke with suicide pod.

Legal or not, it appears the capsule was used by an American woman to become dead in Switzerland. From the AP story:

Exit International, an assisted suicide group based in the Netherlands, has said it is behind the 3D-printed device that cost over $1 million to develop.

In a statement, the group said a 64-year-old woman from the U.S. Midwest — it did not specify further — who had suffered from “severe immune compromise” had died Monday afternoon near the German border using the Sarco device.

It said Florian Willet, co-president of The Last Resort, a Swiss affiliate of Exit International, was the only person present and described her death as “peaceful, fast and dignified.”

Dr. Philip Nitschke, an Australian-born trained doctor behind Exit International, has previously told the AP that his organization received advice from lawyers in Switzerland that use of the Sarco would be legal in the country.

In the Exit International statement on Tuesday, Nitschke said he was “pleased that the Sarco had performed exactly as it had been designed … to provide an elective, non-drug, peaceful death at the time of the person’s choosing.”

Can you imagine people spending $1 million to develop a suicide pod? Was the capsule tested? If so, how? On animals? Who knows? Somehow, these questions don’t get asked.

A photographer was present to record the death — meaning to create images for suicide proselytizing. The story says several people, including the photographer, have been detained, but I would be surprised if anything came of it. Authorities rarely have the gumption to seriously punish suicide assistance unless in involves a teenager.

Here are the lessons: Nitschke’s (and Jack Kevorkian‘s) nihilism is infectious. Assisted-suicide promotion leads to increased suicide rates generally and eventually, suicide on demand — already the law in Germany because of a court ruling.

Unless we change course and unequivocally stand for suicide prevention and reject facilitation, we will see more of these tragedies.

A Mother's warning about her sons death by assisted suicide in Switzerland.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An 82-year-old mother in the UK is warning people about assisted suicide after her 47-year-old son died at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic.

Judith Hamilton

Paul Brand reported for ITV.com on May 16, 2024 that the Pegasos assisted suicide clinic which assists the suicides of hundreds of people every year, assisted the suicide of Alastair Hamilton, who had an undiagnosed condition. 

Following an ITV News investigation, Pegasos said it would change its procedures to ensure that relatives were always informed in future. Brand reported:

The chemistry teacher had dramatically lost weight and complained of stomach problems in the months leading up to his death, but did not have a diagnosed illness.

His family had been supporting him in seeking medical help and had no idea he was really travelling to Switzerland to end his life.

When he failed to return to the UK and stopped answering his phone, his mother reported him missing.

Bank records eventually revealed that he had paid £11,000 to Pegasos to access what's known as a 'voluntary assisted death' in Switzerland.

ITV News travelled with his family to trace his final journey and confront the clinic which accepted his online application form, which has been seen by ITV News.

Pegasos approved Alastairs death even though they knew that he had an undiagnosed condition. Brand reported:

Limited to 300 word answers, Alastair told them that his undiagnosed condition was causing him "pain, fatigue and discomfort" which had "devastated my life".

However, he admitted that "there is no current, definitive medical explanation" for his illness and that his family did not know he had decided to take his own life.

Despite that, Pegasos accepted his application and within several days of arriving in Switzerland he was helped to die.

At first Pegasos did not respond to the Hamilton family but after ITV got involved they agreed to meet with the family. Brand stated:

Eventually, with the involvement of police and the British embassy, the clinic responded, confirming Alastair's death and returning his ashes to his family in the post.

We persuaded a representative from Pegasos to meet with Judith and Bradley in Switzerland to answer their questions.

At an anonymous office in central Basel, we were greeted by Sean Davison, who had spoken repeatedly to Alastair before he died.

Sean Davidson

Sean Davidson is a past President of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies and a former leader of Dignity South Africa who completed three years (house arrest) in South Africa for his conviction in the deaths of Anrich Burger (in 2013), Justin Varian (in 2015), and Richard Holland (in 2015). Sean Davidson was also convicted in the death of his mother in 2010 and he lost his medical license in New Zealand in 2020.

Brand ended the article by stating:

"In 2022, the Swiss Medical Association revised its guidelines regarding assisted dying. It is important to understand that these guidelines are not legally binding for the associations but are policies for the medical professionals. Several organisations for assisted dying, including Exit, Dignitas and Pegasos, publicly spoke out against the revised guidelines, because they are putting at risk the self-determination of people planning a voluntary assisted death and the freedom of choice in Switzerland."

Previous articles about Switzerland's assisted suicide law:

• My husbands death made me more opposed to assisted suicide (Link). 
• Swiss study: Legalizing assisted suicide does not lessen the number of common suicides (Link).
  

Nitschke's suicide business gets US tax-deductible status.

This article was published by Bioedge on August 24, 2023.

By Michael Cook

Americans can now get a tax-deduction for promoting assisted suicide. The world’s best-known assisted suicide activist, Australia’s Philip Nitschke, has drawn the curtains on a 501(c)3 non-profit called Exit Generation.

Donations, bequests, gifts will be tax deductible to the full extent of the law. Dr Nitschke says that “Exit Generation shares the same board as Exit International & will ensure that Exit has a truly international presence now, & in the future.”

The new venture’s first focus is developing the Sarco 3D-printed euthanasia capsule in Switzerland and then making it available in other countries. Sarco is Dr Nitschke’s brain-child – a 3-D printed capsule in which a customer can kill himself by inhaling nitrogen. The pod can then be used as a cost-saving coffin.

Nitschke has designed other suicide machines in the course of his career, beginning with the “Deliverance Machine” which was used patients in the Northern Territory in 1996. It is now on permanent display in the British Museum.

More article on Philip Nitschke.

• Teens' Parents sue Amazon for Selling "Suicide Kits" (Link). 
• Concern with the growth of radical assisted suicide groups (Link).
• Death capsule is designed to undermine societal resistance to suicide (Link).
• Philip Nitschke is watching his clients die by suicide (Link).
  

 

CTV News publishes irresponsible suicide article

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kenneth Law

An article written by Aisling Murphy and published by CTV News on July 25 appears to focus on the case of Kenneth Law who was arrested on May 2, 2023 for allegedly selling 1200 suicide kits online. In reality, the article promotes suicide.

The article interviews family members of victims who died by suicide after allegedly obtaining a suicide kit from Law. The article names the suicide substance and provides justification for elder suicide.

Suicide prevention guidelines clearly state that it is inappropriate to describe suicide methods or instructions or appear supportive of suicide deaths.

The article begins by stating:

Law was arrested by Peel police on May 2 and charged with two counts of counselling or aiding suicide. It’s possible more charges could follow from additional police jurisdictions – a Dutch man by the name of “Alex S.” was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison last week for similar charges in the Netherlands.

Over 40 countries and 11 Ontario police forces are now involved in the investigation against Law, who briefly appeared in court on Friday.

The prosecution of Kenneth Law is proving to be a flashpoint in two major online movements: the “pro-choice” suicide advocates, who run forums with detailed guides on how to take one’s own life, and the parents of children who lost their lives in part due to information gleaned from those sites, often with the help of people selling suicide devices online. CP24.com has studied these sites extensively, and Law’s alleged businesses were frequently recommended to at-risk users before his arrest in May.

Last week, Alex S was convicted in the Netherlands for aiding suicide in at least 10 suicide deaths and sentenced to 3.5 years after he sold online 1600 packages of a suicide substance. 

Murphy interviewed Kelli Wilson and Catherine Adenekan, located in the U.S. and U.K. respectively, who are mothers of children who died after receiving the suicide substance through pro-suicide forums. Murphy writes:

“This trial is monumental in so many ways,” said Wilson. “These sites sell to vulnerable people. It’s aiding and abetting suicide, which is akin to murder.Law weaponized mentally ill people against themselves, and that can’t be allowed to continue. It’s a no-brainer. He needs to be held accountable for what he’s (allegedly) done. And the lawmakers, as well – they’ve facilitated these havens for crime.”

“What he’s (allegedly) done is one of the worst things you could possibly do,” added Adenekan. “The root cause of the problem, though, is [pro-suicide forums], which is how sellers like Law get their customers.

“We’re hoping that each and every person he has (allegedly) assisted will get justice for what he’s done,”

I applaud Murphy for interviewing families of suicide victims. However, she is irresponsible and unprofessional by naming the substance used for suicide, including an image of the package of the substance. 

Murphy also interviews Philip Nitschke, a long-time suicide and euthanasia activist, who makes a living selling his suicide book and suicide materials. 

Nitschke essentially says that Law wasn't careful because he was selling the suicide substance to everyone, including teenagers but then Nitscke justifies elder suicide. Murphy states:

While Nitschke advocates for seniors hoping to end their own lives, he says Law acted short-sightedly by allegedly selling sodium nitrite to younger individuals.

It is interesting that Nitschke is concerned about teen suicide considering he told Kathryn Lopez in a 2001 interview that he would provide the "peaceful pill" to troubled teens. Lopez reported in 2001:

I do not believe that telling people they have a right to life while denying them the means, manner, or information necessary for them to give this life away has any ethical consistency. So all people qualify, not just those with the training, knowledge, or resources to find out how to “give away” their life. And someone needs to provide this knowledge, training, or recourse necessary to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, [and] the troubled teen. If we are to remain consistent and we believe that the individual has the right to dispose of their life, we should not erect artificial barriers in the way of sub-groups who don’t meet our criteria.

Nitscke is happy to do these interviews because it directs people to his suicide website.

Murphy and CTV  are irresponsible by publishing an article that essentially promotes suicide.

Swiss Prosecutors ask appeals court to re-examine case of a doctor who assisted the suicide of a healthy woman

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Pierre Beck

Swissinfo.ch reported on April 6 that Swiss prosecutors have asked the appeal court to re-examine the case of Dr Pierre Beck who assisted the suicide of a healthy 86-year-old woman who wanted to die with her husband.

In October 2019, a Geneva court gave a suspended sentence of the former vice-president of the assisted suicide group EXIT, Pierre Beck, for assisting the suicide of an 86-year-old healthy woman. 

At that time Swissinfo reported that Beck admitted to acting beyond the criteria of the law but he said that he didn't regret his action and faced with a similar situation he would likely do it again.

Swissinfo reported on December 9, 2021 that Switzerland's Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Beck on a technicality.

On Thursday, the Federal Court in Lausanne overturned this decision. Although judges were divided about the legality and nuances of the case, a majority of three against two concluded that Beck could not be found guilty under the Federal Act on Medicinal Products, but that the case should go back to the cantonal court in Geneva and be examined under the Federal Act on Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances, which includes pentobarbital.

Beck had admitted to assisting the suicide of an 86-year-old healthy woman because she wanted to die with her husband.

Swissinfo reporting on April 6, 2023 stated:

“The mere fact of a physician prescribing pentobarbital to a person in good health, capable of discernment and wishing to die, does not constitute behavior punishable by the law on narcotics,” read the court last court verdict issued in February.

But The Genevan public prosecutor’s office on Thursday said it has asked the Federal Supreme Court to take another look at the case.

Beck knowingly broke the law and did so without remorse.

Switzerland assisted suicide deaths and Colombia euthanasia deaths increase in 2022.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Michael Cook

I was cleaning up my emails and I noticed two articles by Michael Cook, the editor of Bioedge, that were published by Bioedge on February 14 that I have not shared.

The first article reported that the number of assisted suicide deaths by the Swiss assisted suicide group Exit, increased by 15% in 2022 to 1,125 deaths. Exit is one of the main assisted suicide groups in Switzerland.

The 2022 data indicates that there were 660 women and 465 men who died by assisted suicide. 37% of the people had cancer while 76% of the assisted suicides were done in the person's home and 18.6% of the deaths occured in a nursing or retirement home.

The second article concerned the increase in euthanasia deaths in Colombia. Cook explains that there was a big increase in the number of euthanasia deaths in 2022. Even though he didn't have the complete 2022. Cook reported:

According to the right-to-die group DescLab, in 2015 there were 4 euthanasia deaths; in 2021 there were 95. In the 10 months to October 31, 2022, there were 99.

The increase has been steady: 7 in 2016; 17 in 2017; 24 in 2018; 43 in 2019; 34 in 2020, and 95 in 2021.

According to a DescLab report, between 2015 and October 31, 2022, 322 euthanasia processes have been carried out in Colombia. The last recorded year, 2022, became the period with the most medically assisted deaths. In total, 99 deaths were recorded, while in 2015, when it was regulated, there were four.

Michael Cook reported in April 2021 that the recent Colombian euthanasia bill was defeated, Colombia permits euthanasia based on a 1997 Constitutional Court decision. Cook stated:

Although Colombia is often described as a country where euthanasia is legal, the actual situation is complicated. In 1997 the country’s Constitutional Court ruled that that "the State cannot oppose the decision of an individual who does not wish to continue living and who requests help to die when suffering from a terminal illness that causes unbearable pain, incompatible with his idea of dignity". It directed the legislature to pass a law regulating the right to die.

However, more than 20 years have passed and one bill after another has failed.

Euthanasia is a form of homicide that occurs when a medical professional kills a patient after the patient requested death. Assisted suicide occurs when a medical professional writes a prescription or provides a lethal dose to a patient that they person will self-administer. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are prohibited in most countries in the world.

Swiss assisted suicide groups concerned that "stricter" rules will discourage suicide tourism.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Kuoru Udo published by Swissinfo.ch on July 26 explains that Switzerland's new assisted suicide guidelines may lead to fewer suicide tourists. 

Udo introduces the issue with the story of Alex Pandolfo who lives in the UK with early onset dementia.

Sixty-eight-year-old Pandolfo lives in the UK. When he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer disease in 2015, Lifecircle, an assisted suicide organisation in Basel, gave him the green light and accepted his request for assisted suicide. He plans to go to Switzerland when “the time has come”.

Under the old rules, he would have had to stay in Basel for just a few days to complete his plan, but the new ‘two-week-rule’ makes it a lot more expensive. “People who don’t have enough money will be put off by it,” Pandolfo told SWI swissinfo.ch.

Udo explains that last May the Swiss Medical Association agreed to a new set of guidelines for assisted suicide that state: 

• The physician must – other than in justified exceptional cases – conduct at least two detailed discussions with the patient separated by an interval of at least two weeks.
  
• The symptoms of the illness and/or functional impairment must be unbearable, the severity of which is to be substantiated by a legitimate diagnosis and prognosis.
• Assisted suicide for healthy persons is not medically or ethically justifiable.
  

Previous guidelines did not require a two week interval and they permitted assisted suicide for otherwise healthy people.

Swiss assisted suicide groups are opposed to the new guidelines. Lifecircle president Erika Preisig opposes the ‘two-week-rule’ which she thinks is especially difficult for suicide tourists. Udo reports:

Even though Lifecircle offers the first meeting online, Preisig thinks it could still be a problem for some people. “Most of our patients are elderly who may not know how to conduct an online meeting. Some don’t even have a smartphone,” she notes. That means they would be obliged travel to Switzerland two weeks before their scheduled assisted suicide. And this would be particularly expensive for people with disabilities as they would have to cover the cost for their special care during the two weeks between consultations.

Dignitas, who specialize in foreign suicides, told Udo that:

“the new guideline shifts from putting weight on the patient’s personal view as justification for a physician to support the request for assisted suicide towards a more medical-diagnosis-classification of suffering.”

Switzerlands largest assisted suicide group, Exit, told Udo that:

psychosocial problems can also be a legitimate factor in wishing to end one’s life.

Udo reported that EXIT spokeswoman Muriel Düby said:

neither the Swiss medical fraternity nor the patients and assisted suicide organisations were given the chance to react to the new guidelines. “Even after the draft was approved by the highest authorities of SAMS, it was still classified as secret.”

The Swiss Medical Association appears to be wanting to curtail assisted suicide for people who are not sick or dying and yet the language of the guidelines are open to interpretation. Since the decision is based on "intolerable suffering" which is not objective, therefore assisted suicide for healthy people may continue under these guidelines. The requirement that there be at least two discussions no less than two weeks apart will slow down the assisted suicide approval process, even though one of the assisted suicide groups stated that the first discussion is done online.

Switzerland has not approved suicide pod.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The International media is gaga over Philip Nitschke's Sarco or suicide pod. I try not to write a lot about Nitshcke because he runs a suicide business where he provides online suicide books and devices and he has a website and chatroom explaining to people the best suicide methods.

When the story was released, I called Sarco a deadly lucrative stunt for Nitschke and I suggested that the article by Clare O'Dea for Swissinfo confirmed my thoughts. O'Dea wrote:

The first Sarco is being displayed at the Museum for Sepulchral Culture in Kassel, Germany from September 2021 to August 2022. The second turned out not to be aesthetically pleasing. For that and various other reasons it’s not the best one to use.

In suggest that the purpose of Sarco is to promote Nitschke's suicide business. This is precisely why Sarco is designed in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Now Snopes published an article by Nur Ibrahim stating that Switzerland has not approved Nitschke's suicide pod. I don't always agree with Snopes, but Snopes is correct when it states:

Dr. Philip Nitschke, the man behind the Sarco capsule, claims that the pods have passed a “legal review” and will be available for use in Switzerland in 2022. But details of the “legal review” have not been revealed. Experts consulted by Sarco have argued use of the pod falls outside of Swiss law. A number of assisted suicide organizations in Switzerland have also expressed skepticism over using the machine, and the legality surrounding it.

I think that Michael Cook, the editor of Mercatornet, was right when he referred to Sarco as both a gas chamber and a coffin.

Snopes is right when it states that Sarco falls outside of Swiss law.

Nitschke has once again gained international attention and free advertising from the media for his suicide business. As Paul Russell said a few years ago in his article about Nitschke - "It's a business after all."

Death capsule is designed to undermine societal resistance to suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have avoided writing about Philip Nitschke's (Dr Death) Sarco Death capsule that is designed to promote his death business while undermining resistance to suicide.

An article written by Clare O'Dea for Swissinfo.ch says that Switzerland has approved the Sarco death machine. Essentially this article is propaganda to popularize suicide and provide fame for Nitschke.

O'Dea reports:

Some 1,300 people died by assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2020 using the services of the country’s two largest assisted suicide organisations, Exit (no connection to Exit International) and Dignitas. The method currently in use is ingestion of liquid sodium pentobarbital.

...Sarco offers a different approach for a peaceful death, without the need for controlled substances.

Sarco is a deadly lucrative stunt for Nitschke, O'Dea confirms my thoughts:

The first Sarco is being displayed at the Museum for Sepulchral Culture in Kassel, Germany from September 2021 to August 2022. The second turned out not to be aesthetically pleasing. For that and various other reasons it’s not the best one to use.

In other words, the purpose of Sarco is to enable suicide in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Sarco fulfills Nitschke's philosophy that suicide should be available to anyone at any time. Nitschke tells O'Dea:

P.N.: Currently a doctor or doctors need to be involved to prescribe the sodium pentobarbital and to confirm the person’s mental capacity. We want to remove any kind of psychiatric review from the process and allow the individual to control the method themselves.

Nitschke has been promoting suicide for years. Many years ago, when he was trying to create the "peaceful suicide pill" he was he stated that the suicide pill is for anyone, including troubled teens. This is what he told Kathryn Lopez in 2001:

I do not believe that telling people they have a right to life while denying them the means, manner, or information necessary for them to give this life away has any ethical consistency. So all people qualify, not just those with the training, knowledge, or resources to find out how to 'give away' their life. And someone needs to provide this knowledge, training, or resource necessary to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, the troubled teen. If we are to remain consistent and we believe that the individual has the right to dispose of their life, we should not erect artificial barriers in the way of subgroups that don't meet our criteria.

Nitschke is a death salesman and the Sarco is his latest deadly device to create attention to his deadly business, while killing people along the way.

More articles on Nitschke:

• The economist swoons over death doctor and his suicide machine (Link).
• Suicide promotion websites linked to euthanasia activist (Link).
• Schadenberg comments on suicide activist, Philip Nitschke (Link).

Swiss assisted suicide group will continue to do foreign suicides.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A Swiss assisted suicide group has decided to continue providing assisted suicide for assisted suicide tourists. Exit, which is the largest assisted suicide group in Switzerland, was considering limiting assisted suicide to Swiss citizens but was pressured by its members to continue providing foreign suicides.

According to an article published on September 14, 2021 by Swissinfo:

EXIT’s board of directors had wanted to restrict the service to within the borders of Switzerland as it was becoming difficult to obtain the necessary documentation from abroad and to arrange journeys to Switzerland.

But earlier this year, Swiss media reported that the proposal was not being viewed favourably by members. For this reason, EXIT’s directors decided to drop the proposal.

Exit carried-out 913 assisted suicide's in 2020. Unlike the other assisted suicide groups, such as Dignitas, that focus on suicide tourism, only 1% of Exit's assisted suicide deaths were suicide tourists.

The push for assisted suicide means more suicide.

The Suicide Contagion is real.

This video story was produced by the Patients Rights Action Fund (Link).

I knocked on the door but I didn't hear anything so I opened up the door and she was on the floor beside the bed. So I screamed, I went down to her, I was looking, all I saw was, she was so blue, blue, it was horrifying. Like I still can't get the images out of my head.

My daughter Shawn Alexandra Shatto died on May 22, 2019. She was 25 years old. She died by suicide with the help of a website that assisted her and encouraged her.

There is like a menu and it gives you the list of how you want to die and you choose your method. They provided her with the recipe, the method and instructions.

Shawn was a very sweet, funny, unique, lovable girl. We were just two peas in a pod. She was always smiling, always laughing, always making people laugh.

Talking about assisted suicide is very dangerous, especially when you have the younger kids on there and the vulnerable that feel lost and are in pain.

I believe that when she went on that website, and saw the way that they were talking about ending their lives, you know saying well you know its OK to kill yourself over a terminal illness, she probably thought well ya, I'm in pain and I'm dealing with this, why can't I die like that too?

Her phone was on her bed. The last thing she ever said to anyone on this earth was "I'm fing terrified."

Suicide contagion is real. Tell your legislators to say NO on assisted suicide laws.

Swiss assisted suicide deaths increase. Problems continue.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Swiss Exit suicide organization reported that they assisted 1282 suicide deaths in 2020 up from 1218 in 2019.

Swissinfo reported that:

EXIT Deutsche Schweiz, which covers the German and Italian-speaking parts of the country, saw a rise of 51 assisted suicides as it helped 913 people terminate their lives in 2020. More people living in French-speaking Switzerland also ended their lives last year, as 369 people used the services of EXIT Suisse Romande.

The article states that fewer people died by assisted suicide from March to May 2020 due to COVID -19. It is estimated that 1.5% of all deaths in Switzerland are by assisted suicide.

Swiss assisted suicide problems

In February 2020, the Swiss Cantonal Departments of Justice and Police approved assisted suicide for prisoners after a Swiss prisoner convicted of sexual assault and rape of girls and woman was considered for death by assisted suicide. An AFP news article reported that Peter Vogt (69), a dangerous offender, who was diagnosed with several psychological disorders and reportedly lives with health issues related to his kidney and heart, contacted the assisted suicide group Exit, and was being considered for assisted suicide.

Dr Pierre Beck

In October 2019, a Geneva court gave a suspended sentence to the regional vice-president of EXIT, Pierre Beck, for assisting the suicide of an 86-year-old woman who was not sick.  According to Swissinfo, Beck admitted to acting beyond the criteria of the law but he said that he didn't regret his action and faced with a similar situation he would likely do it again.

In February 2014, Oriella Cazzanello, an 85 year-old healthy woman died at a Swiss suicide clinic. The letter she sent her family stated that she was unhappy about how she looked.

Pietro D'Amico

In April 2013, Pietro D’Amico, a 62-year-old magistrate from Calabria Italy, died by assisted suicide at a suicide clinic in Basel Switzerland. His autopsy showed that he had a wrong diagnosis.

A Swiss assisted suicide study found that 16% of the people who died at Swiss assisted suicide clinics, in 2014, had no underlying illness.

The Swiss assisted suicide experience proves that when assisted death becomes accepted, deaths by assisted suicide will increase and the reasons for it will expand.  

A Swiss group caters to Dutch who are not eligible for euthanasia

This article was published by Bioedge on January 24, 2021.

Michael Cook

By Michael Cook

You might think that the Dutch, who live in a country where euthanasia is legal, would have no need for the schemes of Dr Philip Nitschke, Australia’s rogue right-to-die campaigner. You would be wrong.

The Dutch magazine Trouw profiled an 87-year-old man, Kees Kentie, who went to Switzerland to die with the help of a new assisted suicide organisation, Pegasos, which is affiliated with Nitschke’s Exit International. As he explained in a recent tweet:

"The Swiss have not medicalised their end-of-life laws. Those tired of life can be helped, and couples can die together. Pegasos makes this possible. This pisses off the Dutch, where you MUST be sick, from NL, and a doctor makes the decisions, not you."

Kentie, who is not terminally ill, but frail and tired of life, wanted to die. But no Dutch doctors would help him as he did not fulfil the euthanasia law’s criteria.

So he looked into dying in Switzerland and found Pegasos which promises shorter waiting times and less red tape and conducts business in English.

Kentie went to Switzerland with two Dutch friends who made sure that he was comfortable and accompanied him in his last days. The paperwork was minimal. He had a brief chat with one of the officials of Pegasos. According to Trouw:

That Kentie is ‘tired of life’ is explained in the context of the conversation and from the supporting documents. It does not need to be explicitly asked. It was important that [his friend] Hooimeijer had earlier helped Kentie put his thoughts down on paper.

Half an A4 page long, Kees explained that he was at a time when he felt that his life was increasingly completed and that he had a fear of further decline. He wanted to stay in control until the very end.

Nitschke – who now resides in the Netherlands -- keeps Pegasos at arm’s length, but he promotes it on the website of Exit International, his organisation. The Swiss Medical Association regards it as unethical, although it seems to act within the law. According to Trouw, it “is the only one of the six Swiss death aid organizations to also provide assisted suicide to those who are 'tired of life', older than 'around 70 to 75 years' and not seriously ill.” It seems that it has less red tape because it by-passes the Swiss requirement for “unbearable suffering”. Instead of asking a doctor to certify this, it takes the word of the patient himself. However, the head of the ethics department of the Association, Thomas Gruberski, told Trouw, “We do not agree with that interpretation.”

Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge

Swiss doctor found guilty in the assisted suicide death of a woman who was not sick.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Finally a little sanity within the insanity.

Pierre Beck

A Swiss doctor was found guilty in the assisted suicide death of a woman who was not sick. 

According to Swissinfo news:

A court in Geneva has given a suspended sentence to the regional vice-president of EXIT, Pierre Beck, for helping an 86-year-old woman to die when she was not sick.

He was found guilty of breaking federal law on therapeutic substances and given a suspended 120-day jail sentence. The court thus confirmed a criminal order issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland.

Beck, a medical doctor who is vice-president of Exit in francophone Switzerland, provided a lethal dose of pentobarbital in April 2017 for the elderly woman. She wanted to die with her husband, who was very ill.

According to Swissinfo, Beck admitted to acting beyond the criteria, but he said that he didn't regret his action and faced with a similar situation he would likely do it again, but after seeking advice.

The good news is the judge decided that Swiss law does not permit assisted suicide for existential reasons.

The court dealt with Beck leniently when giving him a suspended sentence. The lenient sentence may be interpreted as a green light to kill because the court did not provide a deterrent.

Recently a physically healthy depressed man died by euthanasia in BC. Alan Nichols (61) died by euthanasia, even though he did not qualify for euthanasia since he was not sick. His family urged the doctor to stop the injection, but to no avail.

Hopefully the Nichols case can prevent other similar cases from occurring in Canada.