Image Source: Exit International
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is facing calls to block controversial assisted suicide campaigner Philip Nitschke from entering Britain to demonstrate his latest suicide device just days before MPs vote on assisted dying.
Nitschke, widely nicknamed “Dr Death” and previously responsible for the Sarco suicide pod, is due to demonstrate his Kairos “suicide collar” at a public event in London on 5th September.
The device uses inflatable components to apply pressure to arteries in the neck, causing unconsciousness and ultimately death. Nitschke has described its operation in stark terms: “Press the button, it bangs, you pass out and die.”
His planned appearance comes only six days before MPs are due to consider Lauren Edwards’ revived assisted suicide legislation on 11th September, prompting parliamentarians and campaigners to demand government intervention.
Senior Conservative MP Sir John Hayes described it as “deeply disturbing” that Nitschke intended to advertise what he called his “latest sinister suicide device” in Britain.
“We should not be promoting suicide,” Hayes said, warning that the demonstration offered “a sobering reminder of how an assisted suicide industry would likely emerge and be promoted” if Parliament changes the law.
The controversy comes as Parliament prepares to reconsider proposals to legalise assisted suicide for terminally ill adults in England and Wales. The revived Bill seeks to permit eligible adults deemed to have fewer than six months to live (a very imperfect science) to kill themselves on the NHS.
The debate is increasingly turning towards what such a system would mean for British healthcare. Government planning documents reportedly consider training for GPs, including general awareness courses, while doctors taking a more direct role could receive additional training. Under the proposals reported this week, a coordinating doctor could be involved in collecting lethal drugs, explaining their effects, and remaining with a patient until death.
Nitschke has already caused international controversy through the Sarco pod, designed to enable a person to cause their own death by reducing the oxygen inside the device. After its first use in Switzerland a woman was found with strangulation marks around her neck after the machine failed.
SPUC’s CEO John Deighan says: “Sir John Hayes is correct. The cruel and inhumane devices of Dr Death will become commonplace if Parliament passes assisted suicide legislation, creating a legal death market. That is not the Britain we want. This country should be known for top-class care and compassion, especially as the founding place of the modern hospice movement.”
He continued, “I call on Shabana Mahmood to stop Nitschke from entering the country, and I call on all of her colleagues to vote against the Terminally Ill Adults Bill on 11th September.”
