Switzerland garnered attention recently for several arrests made over an “unsafe” suicide pod. While this seems tragically laughable at first glance, it carries with it existential questions and paints for us the bleak moral landscape of our day.
In Switzerland, assisted suicide is legal not only for citizens but also international travelers. The American woman’s death that prompted the arrests was one such traveler. The legal nature of assisted suicide was not question in this instance, nor was the fact that the woman in question was from out of the country. Rather, the legal question concerned the “safety” of the suicide pod. The device in question is known as the Sarco suicide capsule. The company’s website states that the 3-D printed pod, which includes a built-in coffin, provides conditions for a “peaceful, even euphoric death.” The victim climbs inside the futuristic capsule and the door is sealed behind them along with their fate. Once sealed, oxygen levels begin quickly dropping and nitrogen is pumped quickly bringing about death for the person sealed inside.
It was the use of nitrogen that was of primary concern to Swiss Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider. In the Swiss Parliament, she stated: “On one hand, it does not fulfill the demands of the product safety law, and as such, must not be brought into circulation. On the other hand, the corresponding use of nitrogen is not compatible with the article on purpose in the chemicals law.” The concern is not that the Sarco capsule kills a human person, but that it does so with nitrogen. According to Baume-Schneider, suicide ought to be more safe. Whatever that means.
The ghoulish nature of such a futuristic death pod is unnerving to the average person and for good reason. A prototype of the Sarco capsule was displayed at Venice Design in 2019. The pod on display featured a Carl Sagan quote along its base: “We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
The quote is telling. The glorification of suicide is completely fitting within a materialistic worldview. If we are nothing but “star stuff” then why value life at all? If we can justify taking our own lives on the basis of being mere “star stuff” what is to stop us from purging society from its more vulnerable and economically costly individuals? Why not let the “star stuff” take its rightful place in the hierarchy of existence?
This was precisely the argument of the Nazi regime. Hitler and his henchmen did not merely seek to purge Germany of Jews but of all “impure” peoples. Thus, the mentally ill and physically disabled were to be done away with. Though we shudder at the thought of the Holocaust, in the West this same logic is already applied via abortion. Such nations as Iceland and Denmark have virtually “eradicated” Down syndrome. However, the means by which they accomplished this feat was by eradicating people with Down syndrome. As CBS points out, in such nations as Iceland, “the vast majority of women — close to 100 percent — who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.”
This same logic is entertained throughout Western nations even well past the moment of birth. Dr. Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics at Yale, stated the following in 2021 concerning Japan’s aging problem: “I feel like the only solution is pretty clear. In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?”
Prominent Western intellectuals have articulated similar answers to the world’s population problem. They refer to it as population control. Hitler and the Nazis used the phrase Lebensunwertes Leben or “life unworthy of life.” Though this logic is absurd to the average onlooker, assisted voluntary euthanasia still seems reasonable to many. But the fact is, if we are nothing but star stuff, “involuntary euthanasia” is only one step removed. It is at this point that the Christian worldview pushes back and assures us that our lives are not our own but rather a stewardship, given to us by God. We each bear his image and are dignified in his sight.
The Sarco pod undoubtedly unnerves the average person, and for good reason. Death is an unnatural thing. The intentional taking of one’s life is even more unnatural. Yet, an atheistic worldview cannot account for this reality. If we are nothing but star stuff, then assisted suicide and euthanasic population control are morally insignificant. May the star stuff do as it will.
One need not strain to see the outworking of this worldview in practice. The 20th century is riddled with the bitter fruits of such a purely materialist worldview. Millions of voices cry out from the mass graves of Europe in testimony to the futility and wickedness of such thinking. Intrinsically, we know we are more than mere star stuff. Human beings are not a cosmic accident. We are fearfully and wonderfully made at the hands of a benevolent God. Euthanasia is undoubtedly a slippery slope, wrong both in theory and practice.
