Futurama was right! German guy builds legal suicide machine

[Darius871]

Death for hire - suicide machine lets you push final button
March 29, 2008
Roger Boyes in Berlin

One press of a button and you can end your life with a swift injection of potassium chloride. That is the boast of Roger Kusch, once one of Germany's most promising conservative politicians and now the improbable promoter of a mercy-killing machine.

If the “Perfusor”, designed to sidestep strict laws banning assisted suicide, goes into production then Germany rather than Switzerland could soon become the destination of choice for those seeking to kill themselves.

Some 700 patients, including several terminally ill Britons, have travelled to Zurich where the self-help organisation Dignitas arranges suicide. Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942 providing a doctor has been consulted and the patient is aware of the consequences of his decision.

But Dignitas has come under fire for experimenting with suicide techniques. According to video evidence presented to the Zurich state prosecutor, patients have been placing plastic bags over their heads and feeding in helium gas.

In four cases being studied by the prosecutor, one patient died after nine minutes and three after between 25 and 50 minutes. “The bodies twitched for several minutes,” Andreas Brunner, the prosecutor, said. Swiss papers compared the gassing method to the techniques used in the Third Reich.

Dignitas argued that gassing was faster than poisonous injection because helium did not require a prescription, eliminating the cost and the time involved in finding a sympathetic doctor.

These revelations have struck home in Germany, where direct assistance in mercy killing is illegal and where most Dignitas clients live. The theme is highly sensitive because of the systematic euthanasia practised by the Nazis on the physically and mentally disabled.

“The machine is simply an option for fatally ill people,” said Dr Kusch, 53, presenting the green machine that looks like a cross between an electric transformer and a paint spraygun. “Nobody is forced to use it but I do believe that it will contribute to a debate that is moving thousands of people.”

The machine would be lent or rented so that the patients could insert the needles themselves and then push the button releasing the potassium chloride, used to execute Death Row prisoners in some US states. Supporters say the machine will bring about death in seconds. Death Row cases suggest the process could be longer. One of the responsibilities of the organisation lending the machine will be to consult with doctors about the exact dosage.

Merely lending the machine to a prospective suicide is not, say legal experts, against German law. Gerhard Strate, a defence lawyer from Hamburg, said: “As long as the sick person is fully conscious and aware, then lending the machine to him is no more illegal than lending him a kitchen knife or a razor blade. It becomes illegal only if the potential suicide asks someone in the room to press the button for him.”

Dr Kusch, whose doctorate is in law not medicine, was once a political star. Under Chancellor Kohl, he was head of the internal security department and in 2001 became Justice Minister in Hamburg. Tipped for high office, he became the victim of Christian Democratic infighting, left the party and set up his own grouping that actively propagated mercy killing for the terminally ill. He has now withdrawn from politics and he has established a legal practice, which will specialise in offering advice to old people worried about the legal and tax implications of ending their lives.

The tabloid Bild Zeiting denounced Dr Kusch's machine as “perverse” and other media outlets have tentatively skirted around the taboo.

The case of Chantal Sebires has moved Germany and triggered a debate. The Frenchwoman, allergic to pain-relieving morphine, killed herself after suffering an incurable tumour. Die Welt said: “Opponents of assisted suicide stress that palliative medicine and new pain therapies make it unnecessary. The Sebires case showed that these have their limits.”

“For believing Christians the self determination of death is a violation, an attempt to interfere with the Creation which can be determined only by God,” the paper wrote on Easter Sunday, “but can believers really demand that non-believers adopt their point of view?”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3641866.ece

The prototype:

[Wezil]

The machine would be lent or rented...

It would suck as an investment.

[Ben Kenobi]

Could they sue him if it failed?

[Wezil]

I hope they have a much better version if/when I'm shopping for one.

[Donegeal]

Rented? How much is the late fee when you don't return it after use?

[Wezil]

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Donegeal
Rented? How much is the late fee when you don't return it after use?

They can file a claim on the estate technically. It's a good question on the sheer mechanics of getting the thing back though; is there a clause in the contract that permits one of their goons to enter the home and pick it up after it's all done?

[Krill]

****ing awesome invention.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Darius871
is there a clause in the contract that permits one of their goons to enter the home and pick it up after it's all done?

"Yep, he's done twitching. Go ahead and unplug him, Mrs Jones is waiting in 3b..."

[Darius871]

I gotta find out how to get a piece of this action.

[Tattila the Hun]

Doesn't help the paralyzed cases. Can't push the button.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Could they sue him if it failed?

Don´t think so.
Per jure he doesn´t lend it to them with the intention to have them commit suicide (as it would be illegal to help a person in commiting suicide ). It is the people who receive it who (ab)use the machine in this manner, by inserting needles from the machine into their arm and pressing a certain button
So I doubt that the creator can be blamed, if the machine is (ab)used to commit suicide and fails to meet expectations.


Somehow I suspect that the death of people using this machine will be much more agonizing than the death of those executed in american death rows.
After all these people (death candidates in US Executions) get a lot of other substances injected beforehand, things like muscle relaxants, and narcotics, before finally the KCl is injected.
I think this will make a great difference (and a prson executed will have a more peaceful transit into his/her afterlife than a person using the suidice machine)

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Doesn't help the paralyzed cases. Can't push the button.

There are technologis around which enable the person to move a mouse pointer or even steer a soimulated plane just with their mind alone (well, to be more precise by their brain activity ).
Maybe one could modify a machine so that it can be plugged into such a device.

The only problem would be to determine wether the person who applies the electrodes onto the head of the paralyzed suicide and starts the machine who reads the outputs of the suicides brain is de jure helping her to commit suicide (which would be illegal according to german law) although it is the suicide himself who presses the virtal button that starts the injections.

[Ben Kenobi]

Per jure he doesn´t lend it to them with the intention to have them commit suicide (as it would be illegal to help a person in commiting suicide ). It is the people who receive it who (ab)use the machine in this manner, by inserting needles from the machine into their arm and pressing a certain button

What if they are crippled by the machine. That would be a lawsuit right there.

[BeBro]

I think the cellular regeneration and entertainment chamber the weird scientist developed in DS9 was much cooler.

[Wiglaf]

I went to Switzerland once and was nearly hit by a bus because the driver was intoxicated, and the passengers were clearly enjoying it. There are no standards but neutrality and premarital sex in this country. You want to be a bus driver? As long as you are neutral and have sex with me then you get the job. This is literally how people are hired in this place, where the women are dogs and the men have no balls.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


What if they are crippled by the machine. That would be a lawsuit right there.

I´m not sure, as I am no lawyer.
On the one hand it is the responsibility of the organisation that gives the machine out, to take care of the exact dosage of the KCl. So an underdosage might be a real possibility if the one who fills it into the machine isn´t fully awake
On the other hand, referring to the arguments mentioned in the article (with the kitchen knife you lend to a suicide) you also couldn´t be blamed if you lent a kitchen knife to a suicide and he/she crippleds himself in an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

But normally I suspect the probable outcome of such a trial (i.e. being crippled due to underdosage) would be, that the person responsible for the dosage of the KCl might be found guilty of bodily injury caused by negligence

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
I went to Switzerland once and was nearly hit by a bus because the driver was intoxicated, and the passengers were clearly enjoying it. There are no standards but neutrality and premarital sex in this country. You want to be a bus driver? As long as you are neutral and have sex with me then you get the job. This is literally how people are hired in this place, where the women are dogs and the men have no balls.

I have been to switzerland as well and I can assure you that, at least around Zürich (not sure about other swiss regions) the women are no dogs, but rather very good looking examples of the human species (at least most of them).
I cannot say anything about the balls of the men there however, as I never did any closer examinations into this topic

[jkp1187]

Those Germans. Nothing changes.

[Ben Kenobi]

the person responsible for the dosage of the KCl might be found guilty of bodily injury caused by negligence

Thanks.

So saving a person's life is now negligence?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Thanks.

So saving a person's life is now negligence?

At least if he ends up crippled instead of death.
If he survoives without further harm done (maybe because said person who is responsible for the dosage exchanged the KCl-solution with a physiological NaCl solution) things might have a different outcome however
(but of course nothing would prevent the suicide from just getting the right amount of KCl from another person)