Founded | 15 August 2019Basel, Switzerland | in
---|---|
Founder | Ruedi Habegger |
Area served | World |
Website | pegasos-association |
Pegasos Swiss Association or Pegasos is a non-profit[1] group based in Basel, Switzerland with a minimal-bureaucracy approach to assisted suicide. (They also used to have an office in Melbourne, Australia,[2] which is now closed). In Greek mythology, Pegasus is a winged horse that the Pegasos association sees as symbolizing how patients speedily escape gravity on their final journey.[3]
Pegasos Swiss Association was founded in August 2019 by Ruedi Habegger,[3] brother of the Swiss suicide activist Erika Preisig.[4] Habegger was instrumental in the assisted suicide of famous 104-year old Australian scientist David Goodall. In its first month, the association provided four patients with lethal doses of sodium pentobarbital at their Liestal facility.[3]
While other assisted suicide organisations require reports from medical experts, Pegasos only needs them in complicated cases, such as patients with mental and neurological diseases.[3]
The organisation has loose ties to Philip Nitschke's Exit International, and Nitschke plans to explore the use of his Sarco device in collaboration with Pegasos.[5]