Dr. Thaddeus Pope Believes Swiss Suicide Pod Company Will Be Cleared In Investigation

TMZ

A legal firm reportedly tipped off the police about the use of the pod in an assisted suicide, which prompted the investigation ... though, Last Resort noted it expected this would happen in the aftermath of its launch.

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00:00I expect that while they're investigating and they're holding maybe these people, that

00:08the prosecution will not go forward, because you do need three things.

00:13A, the person has to have capacity, right, they have to have the mental capacity to understand

00:17what it is that they're doing.

00:19I expect that the final resort, which is the organization that provided the SARCO, will

00:23provide documentation from a psychiatrist that shows that this 64-year-old woman did

00:28have decision-making capacity.

00:30Second, as you said, they'll show that she did it herself, right, that final overt act

00:37that caused the nitrogen to come into the capsule.

00:39The button is on the inside, so it's designed to assure that.

00:44The third thing is they are actually helping her, they're just not helping her do that

00:49final part of it.

00:51They provided her the SARCO, of course, but that's even allowed so long as it's not done

00:56for selfish reasons.

00:58And as I understand the last resort, they do not charge, right, so this is, they're

01:04not making money off of this.

01:05So I believe that all three conditions will be met.

01:09This is hard for me to understand why they would criminalize this.

01:16And this has been a dogfight for a long time.

01:18Which way is the tide turning?

01:20I really don't know.

01:21So in the U.S., I think it's important to remember that even all the states that authorize

01:26medical aid to die, like California, still have felony assisted suicide on the books.

01:33So if you don't proceed in the manner following the procedures that are specified in the California

01:40End-of-Life Option Act, then you're in the felony assisted suicide world.

01:45So every single state in the country criminalizes assisted suicide.

01:49What we're carving out is allowing a licensed physician, advanced practice registered nurse,

01:56and some states physician assistant, to write you a lethal prescription that you can take

02:02yourself if you're terminally ill.

02:04So that is what's definitely been changing over the past few years.

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