Sarah Holliday

July 19, 2024

We live in a world saturated with sin, which frequently comes across as death-obsessed. Look around and you’ll quickly see how many in our culture demand abortion, the death of the unborn. Our schools and government continue to push for transgenderism and LGBT ideology, the death of innocence and basic biology. Society, it often seems, craves complete subjectivity, the death of truth itself. And yet, death has another sly sickle swinging in the lives of vulnerable people, and it goes by the name of euthanasia — the death of hope.

For someone already questioning their life, fed up with the troubles of this world and looking for a way out, euthanasia seems a fitting route. But really, it’s a tragedy, and one being heavily promoted in various parts of the world. A major culprit of this life-ending system is Switzerland, which recently brought attention to their soon-to-come “portable suicide pod,” Sarco. In less than 10 minutes and at the cost of $20, this pod will rob you of your life.

The Last Resort (LR) is the organization presenting this with the inventor Philip Nitschke of Exit International (EI), and they noted they “saw no legal obstacle to its use in Switzerland, where the law generally allows assisted suicide if the person commits the lethal act themselves.” According to LR executive Florian Willet, the suicide pod, which was first unveiled in 2019, already has people “queuing up.” It currently only holds someone as tall as five feet eight inches, but “the development team is seeking to build a double Sarco so couples could end their lives together.”

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The way it operates is by replacing the oxygen inside the pod with nitrogen, which then leads to death by hypoxia. “I cannot imagine a more beautiful way [to die],” Willet added. “[B]reathing air without oxygen until falling into an eternal sleep.” For someone who chooses this route, these are the last words they will hear from a robotic voice: “If you want to die, press this button.”

As Nitschke explained, “Within two breaths of air of that low level of oxygen, they will start to feel disorientated, uncoordinated and slightly euphoric before losing consciousness. … We will be able to see quite quickly when that person has died.” And once that button is pressed, he noted, that’s it — “There’s no way of going back.”

In a conversation with Annabelle Pechmann, a current intern with Family Research Council’s Communications Department, it became clear her heart for bringing awareness to the dangers of euthanasia and its threat to the sanctity of life. To The Washington Stand, she explained that Sarco’s launch in Switzerland seems to be “a wake-up call to our society in the West,” and especially for those of us in the church. She urged, “As Christians, [it’s important] to start preparing policies against this happening in places such as America.”

From Pechmann’s perspective, euthanasia is a “type of genocide,” and arguably, it’s been largely off the radar of most Americans. But “we shouldn’t wait until a policy or a nonprofit or some piece of legislation comes out to declare that this is acceptable … in our country” before we counter it, she urged. “The time to stand against such evil is now.”

This suicide pod, as it’s been deemed, is a machine created by people who claim to be doctors yet have dedicated the majority of their work to making death more convenient. Allegedly, Sarco is reserved for people over the age of 50. But as LR advisory board member Fiona Stewart said that if someone 18 or older was severely ill, “[W]e would not want to deny a suffering person based on their age.” And digging deeper, it becomes evident that someone like Nitschke has podcasts, videos, workshops, and more, all of which promote death — even if you’re physically healthy.

Indeed, if you look at the Sarco website, it includes these phrases like “(Re)design Death” and “what if we dared to imagine that our last day might also be one of our most exciting?” The page specifically states, “The elegant design was intended to suggest a sense of occasion: of travel to a ‘new destination.’” This is a system glorifying and romanticizing death. As Pechmann emphasized, “Last time I thought about it, human beings still feel pain, death still exists, and suffering occurs in this broken world. To state that euthanasia and physician assisted suicide are part to solving people’s problems, well, it is only adding to them.”

The truth is, as Pechmann eloquently said, euthanasia does not provide “hope, a cure, [or] a change.” And yet, these are what people need most. More than just needing them, we need hopes, cures, and changes that are eternal — all of which are exclusively offered in Jesus Christ.

As I read about Sarco, becoming increasingly mournful over this flippant view of life and death, the words from Matthew 6 came to mind. “Look at the birds of the air,” Jesus said. “They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” He went on, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:26; 28-30).

In the strife of life, perhaps there are fewer comforts greater than knowing our Lord loves us. “Come to Me,” Jesus tells us, “All you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). To not only serve an all-powerful God, but one who genuinely cares about us — oh, how sweet is this truth. Because even when life doesn’t feel worth living, His promises give us hope to endure; His truth gives us council to move forward; His grace opens the door to eternal life with Him. One day, we will be free of sin, where pain, death, and all suffering will be no more. This is what the Christian life is all about. Truly, to someday live eternally with our Maker is all we need to live joyfully now, despite the vexations that arise as we wait for that day.

Suicide is simply not the answer. Christ, in any and all things, is. As a church, my prayer is that we can take heartbreaking information like what is coming out of Switzerland and be stirred to more passionate evangelism. Don’t you realize? We have the truth every person walking this earth needs. Christ, as Paul wrote in Phillipians 4, is the key to contentment and the key to fortitude. Christ, as Pastor Charles Spurgeon stated, is a perfect Savior who “hath all power in heaven and in earth to save souls.” He has the “power to meet all needs … in all cases … at all times.”

Christ, Spurgeon concludes, “is the God of all grace to us. Deep as our miseries and boundless as our sins may be, the mines of His unfathomable love, His grace, and His power, exceed them still.” This is what broken souls need. Not a pod that permanently erases all hope and life, but a Savior who is a permanent hope, and offers eternal, painless life.