Suicide by Default

Dr. Death’s New Killing Device Is Even Worse than Its Predecessors

A “cyanide pill” has become a familiar trope in action and spy movies. Sometimes it’s an actual pill that must be swallowed; other movies make it an implant, usually embedded in a tooth, that must be crushed for the poison to be released. No matter the form, the purpose is the same: to trigger a quick death. In some stories the cyanide pill is provided for the hero to take as a last resort in the event of being captured. Other times it is taken by one of the bad guys to avoid being questioned. Some movies poke fun at the trope by having an incompetent baddie accidentally kill himself with it. Perhaps implanting a means by which you might accidentally kill yourself is not a good idea!

Autonomy by Kill Switch

One might think that this is something only found in the movies, or perhaps in the world of spies and special ops soldiers, but Dr. Philip Nitschke is working to make something like the cyanide pill widely available. Nitschke has developed numerous suicide devices, most famously the Sarco suicide pod. His current project is an implant, likely placed in the leg, that will contain a lethal dose of poison. Each day the implant will beep and/or vibrate and will need to be deactivated. If the person with the implant fails to deactivate it, the poison will be released.¹ The device is still in the planning and development phase—it has not yet been produced or used—but Nitschke says he is getting close to having a prototype ready for testing.²

Why would someone even consider implanting a device designed to kill him? Nitschke claims that this will help to solve the “dementia dilemma” related to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). The dilemma lies in the fact that the law requires patient consent, but as dementia advances, there may come a point at which the patient cannot give meaningful consent. Nitschke explains:

When a person has dementia, they can nowadays quite legally in some places fill out a bit of paper 10 years ago, when they are of sound mind, saying “if I get like this, kill me.”

Now, 10 years later, a doctor can come along, read the bit of paper, and even though you don’t know which way is up or down, legally give you an injection and end your life. That makes a lot of people feel pretty uncomfortable, and certainly makes me feel uncomfortable.³

Nitschke’s discomfort has nothing to do with the fact that it is wrong to kill someone simply because their mental faculties have declined. Rather, he believes that suicide should not be medicalized at all but should instead be a completely personal, autonomous decision.

The dementia dilemma was highlighted by a Dutch case from 2019. A woman who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease wrote a statement expressing her wish to be euthanized once her condition deteriorated, but at a time of her choosing. Her condition eventually declined to the point that she needed to enter a nursing home, where one of the doctors, Marinou Arends, asked her if she was ready to die. The woman repeatedly answered no, saying, “Not yet.”

Despite receiving multiple refusals, Arends decided that the patient no longer understood what she was saying and proceeded to euthanize her anyway. Arends attempted to sedate her with a sleeping medication secretly added to her coffee, but the woman awoke and seemed to resist the lethal infusion; the woman’s daughter and husband then held her down until the euthanasia was completed.⁴ Despite public outcry over the case, and despite the fact that the woman not only had not consented but seemed to actively resist being killed, Dutch courts acquitted Arends of any wrongdoing, ruling that she had acted in the interest of her patient and that “all requirements of the euthanasia legislation” had been fulfilled.⁵

The problem with cases like this, according to Nitschke, is that euthanasia and assisted suicide require a second party to help you end your life. His proposed “kill switch” removes this problem. Rather than placing the burden of killing a patient on the doctor, his device “puts the responsibility right back onto the person and allows them to get what they want, which is that they do not want to live on as some form of vegetable, with no one prepared to end their lives.”⁶ As he sees it, if you hear a beeping/buzzing noise and can no longer remember that deactivating it is necessary to save your life, then your life is no longer worth living.

Practical Objections

Nitschke has long been on a mission to make suicide easy and painless, and his controversial suicide devices have earned him such monikers as, “Dr. Death,” “the Elon Musk of assisted suicide,” and “the Willy Wonka of death.” No matter one’s position on euthanasia and PAS, Nitschke’s proposed death implant raises a host of concerns, even in places where these practices are already legal.

Some issues are merely practical. What happens if there is some kind of malfunction and the device goes off unintentionally? Who would be held liable for wrongful death? Other practical issues have to do with how the device is deactivated. Since it is implanted, it likely will not have a direct off switch but will need some sort of app or remote control. What happens if the device stops receiving signals, or you lose your phone, or you’re in an area where the two cannot communicate? Nitschke has proposed allowing the timer to go off for a day or even longer to prevent such accidents, but not every complication can be solved that quickly. Imagine the nightmare scenario—needing to stop a device, which you yourself had willingly had implanted, from prematurely killing you, all the while hearing the constant beep in the background, knowing that if you fail to stop it the result will be your death.

Security is also a major issue. Anything that communicates wirelessly is subject to being hacked. What happens if a family member gets access and decides that it is time for someone in their care to die a little bit sooner? Ransomware attacks are already a problem; how much worse might one be when it is not your data but your life that is threatened? These scenarios may sound outlandish, but they are very real possibilities when someone is recommending implanting a poison-delivery system into the body.

Ethical Objections

Though Nitschke’s proposed device is supposedly a way for people to bypass the medicalization of death and take their fate into their own hands, it is still open to many of the criticisms leveled at euthanasia and PAS. There is a reason disability advocacy groups oppose the legalization of these practices. To decide that certain illnesses and disabilities are so bad that they make life no longer worth living is to devalue the lives and experiences of those who currently live with these conditions. Many in the disability community already experience stigma from doctors and feel they have to defend their right to continue living. Normalizing suicide as a means of escaping disability will only exacerbate these pressures.

Furthermore, it is well-documented that people without a disability are poor judges of the quality of life of the disabled. Studies have found that many who said they would rather die than live with certain conditions changed their mind when they themselves became disabled. People can change their minds. Nitschke does say that it should be possible to remove his device after it has been implanted, but this again raises the issue of competence. If the whole point of implanting a device is to ensure your prior wishes are fulfilled when you have lost decisional capacity, what happens if you are judged to be lacking in that capacity when you decide to have it removed? One thinks of the Dutch woman who requested euthanasia before her decline but then seemingly changed her mind, or at the very least never found her condition distressing enough that she actually wanted to end her life. Those suffering from dementia still possess worth and dignity, and we should neither normalize nor encourage suicide.

Finally, suicide contagion is a real phenomenon. News outlets are supposed to follow specific recommendations when reporting on suicides to avoid creating copycats. In areas where PAS has been legalized, the general rate of suicide has also increased. A society’s attitude towards suicide matters, and when people like Nitschke push to make it normalized many people see that as an invitation to end their own life. If produced and legalized, Nitschke’s device for enabling dementia patients to “control their own destiny” will very likely lead to an increase in suicide more generally.

First Do No Harm

Nitschke is right about one thing—euthanasia and assisted suicide should not be medicalized. For the past 2,000 years the legacy of the Judeo-Christian Hippocratic tradition has been to heal, not to harm; participating in the killing of a patient is incompatible with the practice of medicine. Where he goes wrong is concluding that death should therefore be a completely autonomous decision. We are not isolated, atomistic individuals, and our decisions affect those around us. Society cannot declare that certain people’s lives are no longer worth living and not expect vulnerable people to apply that to themselves. Nitschke may claim to have good intentions, but it is hard to see how trying to convince people to implant a device designed to kill them is anything but a perverse devaluing of human life.

—Suicidal thoughts or actions are signs of extreme distress and should not be ignored. If you or someone you know needs immediate help, call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

Notes
1. “Assisted Suicide Implant Invented for Dementia Patients,” Care (Jun. 4, 2025).
2. Elena Salvoni, “The Kill Switch for Dementia Sufferers: Inventor Behind the Suicide Sarco Pod Reveals Plans for Implant That Will Automatically Kill Patients When Their Condition Worsens,” Daily Mail (May  22, 2025).
3. Io Dodds, “Creator of ‘Suicide Pod’ Wants to Make Body Implant That Would Kill You If You Forget to Deactivate It,” The Independent (Dec. 22, 2021).
4. “Dutch Doctor Who Euthanized Woman Without Final Consent Defends Decision,” Catholic News Agency (Jun. 16, 2020).
5. “Dutch Euthanasia Case: Doctor Acted in Interest of Patient, Court Rules,” BBC (Sep. 11, 2019).
6. Nitschke, quoted in Dodds, “Creator of ‘Suicide Pod’ Wants to Make Body Implant.”