Is suicide OK?

There's a pro-life thread on right now where the guy is getting slammed for his viewpoint. The general consensus is it's a woman's body, it's her choice. Does this same argument apply to people who decide for whatever reason they want to kill themselves? Is there a point where the state should be allowed to step in stop them given it is their own body and nobody else will be harmed? Opinions, please.

It isn't ok for the families and friends left behind, but it is a person's own body.

I know two people in my life who have committed suicide - one was successful and one was an attempt. I'll never understand why they did it or the circumstances that drove them to it but it's just a serious topic (and should be taken seriously) and it has no real answer.

:shrug:

Sometimes there are reasons for making things illegal that you have to read between the lines to see.

Like I believe there are still marijuana tax stamps that you're supposed to buy and put on weed that's sold, sort of like the tax stamps on cigarettes. They don't expect drug dealers to buy them and use them. But by passing the law and making the stamps available, if they catch you selling weed, they can also cite you for not complying with the tax stamp requirement. And if you're stupid enough to BUY the stamps, then they might decide to keep an eye on your operations.

That's just a really old joke.

survivors. But if that's what I feel I must do to stop the pain, it's nobody else's business.

There should be a life sentance (or death penalty, whrer allowed) for anyone who commits suicide.

:P

There's really no other answer to it.

Family and friends also be deeply affected for the rest of their lives, like the now motherless boy that lives below us at our condo complex, and my late cousin, who I looked up to and admired as a child.

Without it, the suicide rates will remain high and may go even higher.

this choice. rendering it not a real choice at all.

The second that you claim the power to rule certain choices out-of-bounds becuase they are defacto proof of incompetence, you have destroyed the very concept of free choice in the first place.

There are plenty of reasons a person might prefer not to be alive, none of which you find persuasive, but are nonetheless still rational.

I can easily imagine circumstance wherein *I* would prefer to die. Fortunately, none of them are likely to happen to me, but if so, my choice would not be proof of mental illness.

for abortion & suicide

"are often depressed"

One states an absolute based -- apparently -- on nothing but faith.

The other cites a typical situation.

I have worked with people who are so depressed that they become psychotic and paranoid. They develop delusions of persecution or worthlessness. Their motivation to participate in any activities of daily living ceases. There is a point to where Depression does significantly impact the ability to formulate what society considers rational thought.

If a person is so depressed, say, after a layoff from work, or the death of a child, that they think they should blow up their house with the rest of the family inside of it, would you call that a rational decision?

If our society actually offered some real help for people, then there would be fewer suicides. But, since health care, especially mental health care, isn't available for many people, what option have they?

Try being poor, unemployed, or working in a low-paying job and suffering with severe depression. If we had a proper health care system, far fewer people would opt to end their own lives.

I'm sure you're in favor of universal health care, right?

You often do, but this one was very hard for me to put into words.

Universal health care would without question lower the suicide AND abortion rates.

What can you do? What can you tell them? "NO! You must remain alive and suffering and hating every excruciating moment of your painful existence until GAWD calls you home!"

I would argue that someone who is depressed or mentally ill and suicidal doesn't have the wherewithal to make that sort of decision, but what else would you offer them? I could never force someone to live with all that, and since there's nothing else in the way of assistance to offer, live and let die.

state's programs for the mentally ill, dumping them off onto the counties, which promptly avoided dealing with the problem altogether.

I'm married to a woman with bipolar disorder. It's very well controlled with medication, but there have been a few difficult times. Fortunately, we have health insurance which covers her treatment.

For people without the financial resources we have had, there is literally no help at all. Sadly, suicide is the frequent result. This is why I'm 100% for Universal Single-Payer healthcare. I don't see it on the immediate horizon, but it is coming.

For those who are not involved with people who have mental illness, they simply do not understand. Properly treated, which can take a long time and lots of changes in methods, it's manageable in most cases. Left untreated, and it's a real killer.

I have a schizophrenic family member... it's been a long, hard haul. Back before Reagan if there was a problem we could frog march her to the local mental facility where she'd stay until her meds were back on track. After Reagan raped the system, we could only get her hospitalized on her own signature. One of the problems with this disease is that patients often feel they are "cured" and would be better off without the meds, so they simply stop taking them. That's when the aliens land next door and we have to turn off all the electricity so they can't find us... and when the airplanes flying overhead are spying on us... and we are encouraged to dig under the house for the buried bodies... and encouraged to pray to Jesus incessantly... and to hide knives under our beds, just in case. The only time she was hospitalized on a 5150 was when she assaulted a police officer, and then again when she was found driving the wrong way on an interstate, 300 miles from home, and then locked herself in the car, refusing to leave... then told the highway patrol she was on a mission with the FBI. I would have said CIA, but that's me:)

Sometimes I think these people actually do hear and know things we don't, and we're the deficient ones.

I love her dearly... she's brilliant. And when properly medicated, she's an amazing writer, artist, clothing designer, singer... all sorts of very talented things.

The streets of Los Angeles are literally overflowing with similar stories... shame on us.

Used to be when a husband and wife called it quits, one partner (usually the man) would simply move out. Not really possible in today's economy, so the couple is staying together, calling a kind of "economic truce," (they both need each other's paycheck) until "things get better." They very well may not, so as we find ourselves slipping deeper and deeper into gloom and doom: more and more debt with little chance of job promotion...or greater job loss...and you're married to someone who finally realizes they don't give a shit about you, there are very few options left.

I never thought I would say this, but (in increasing instances) money does buy happiness if not freedom...

saying it's illegal is like saying the state owns your body so it's not your property to do what you want with it.

We treat our mentally ill like shit already, you want we should just let them off themselves? How do you tell the difference between someone who is just kinda bored and wants to kill themselves or artsy and wants to make suicide an artistic statement or, perhaps, someone who is, er, overly religious-- and someone suffering from a serious mental illness?

Kind of like an insurance company denying a proven treatment for cancer. Or any condition really.

On the other hand, anyone with a terminal illness should be allowed to choose when to end their life.

Especially without affordable health care. We have people dropping off at roughly one every 12 minutes because they can't afford health insurance. It would be nice to have universal euthanasia plans to die quickly so you could leave the equity in your home to your kids and maybe not leave your family bankrupt. I'd rather die.

Why not legalize all street drugs while we are at this. Be nice just to OD with a big bag of smack and not leave a bloody gunshot mess.

What kind of a country makes you want to kill yourself?

One where Dick Cheney comes on MTP every Sunday and praises torture and waterboarding as a National Legacy. 67% of our national budget already goes to the Pentagon yet none of these wars are paid for? Both wars going full bore ahead all on a credit card, to be paid for later. But we can't pay for universal health care.

Yes, the answer is just kill yourself. Life means nothing. When you can use semantics to term a human being a 'terrorist' so that means you can hang that human by the arms and kick him to death, no life means anything. Our lives mean less when any life means less. And in America life means nothing and money trumps everything.

especially Obama, because of the Muslin thing.

:D

Assisted suicide OTOH closely mirrors the abortion debate IMO.

but just making it a crime to kill yourself will do nothing but hurt the people left behind and the person who may botch the attempt. Mental illness has always had a stigma attached to it. Making it a crime would just make it that much harder for people to get treatment and even want to seek treatment.

was ahead of me was pain, agony, wasted money on useless care. Any number of factors. I have lived to my ripe old age and my greatest fear is that something would happen to me which would put me in a situation that would require that my kids sell all I have in order to care for me when I will die anyway.

I have no desire to vegetate in a nursing home while my kids try and sell my house and possessions and I will have no quality of life. Everything my late husband and I worked for all our lives would go to pay a useless bill. What would be the point of vegging in a bed all day with no activity, no interaction. Nothing. The plot is paid for, let me go.

End of life decisions should be the choice of the person involved. I would hope my kids would understand. Maybe someday I will tell them my opinion. They will cry anyway when I'm gone but maybe they would consider that this was my decision for their benefit, the way I want it, not the state or some home for the terminally ill.

Maybe someone can tell me what merit there is when you are put in a home to die, in the process using every asset you have in order to die. I want to go on my terms and hope that I will be aware of a point in my life that I should have to make this decision. It would not be easy but to me, anyway, it would make the most sense.

I've often thought it would be nice to go as the Eskimo women used to, just walk off into the wilderness when the time is near, and let nature takes its course.

My kids abhor this idea.

I am particularly fearful about getting Alzheimers. I (half) jokingly tell my kids (they are adults, by the way), "If I 'wander off', just let me go!!"

:grouphug:

I think when one feels their time has come they should be allowed to make that choice for themselves.

One going through depression is not fully rational to begin with, so there is an argument to be made that the person is irrationally motivated. I know this to be true.

For people with a terminal illness, I 100% believe they have the right to choose to end their life on their own terms. I hate the idea of anyone suffering through their last days when they were ready to move on.

The lines start to blur for me when the desire for suicide stems from mental illness because I personally think treatment should be the first step. While I was never suicidal, I can honestly say the thoughts I had during depression were not "me". But I also understand that my personal experience may not be universal.

As someone who has lost a friend to suicide at a young age, I think it's selfish and there's a small part of me that's still mad at him because his action destroyed his family and crushed his friends. I don't think that's very fair. I also think it's sad that we didn't see the signs. If I could push the "redo" button, I wonder if getting him help would have helped him live and be happy. I'll never know. However, my personal experience is not enough to restrict the behavior of others.

Obviously any act of suicide that puts other people in danger is something I'm against...suicide by cop, murder/suicide, flying planes into buildings, etc. I think we as members of society can all agree on this.

My thoughts on the subject are a work in progress.

But to force someone to exist in an unhappy and miserable state for their entire life because others couldn't cope with their death, by no means seems fair.

Who's to say that treating him for depression wouldn't have made him happy and alive today?

Like I said, I understand that my personal experience/feelings can't be the basis for constricting the rights of others, but I have a hard time with accepting the idea that treating him for (what I assume was) severe depression shouldn't be the first step.

No one can say that, but where is the unarbitrary point you stop trying? Who gets to decide that? How is that established?


Its a very difficult subject really

It is a difficult subject, but you make a good point. When would it be acceptable by most in society to stop trying? I think the first rule would be that the person would have to be an adult. After that, I simply don't know.

I guess it would be when the person knows they have actual options, but do people who are in a suicidal state honestly have the capability to understand that they do have the option of living without misery? My knowledge of mental illness is way too limited to answer this question unfortunately.

"My knowledge of mental illness is way too limited to answer this question unfortunately"


Probably almost everyone's, politicians alike

You are very correct. It is a very difficult situation, which is why in places where there is involuntary detention and treatment, the laws are limiting to the entities who are working to protect individuals. There is always room for abuse. I have seen the system abused and have tried to fight that. I have had to make the clinical decision to detain people who were suicidal, or to determine that they were not an imminent risk. Stripping people of their rights and choices is a horrific decision to have to make, and there need to be safeguards upon safeguards to prevent people from being locked up casually. When I worked crisis, many of my colleagues hated the patients' rights advocate, who would get people released from the behavioral health unit quickly. I did not. He was doing his job and I was doing mine. I was always glad that there was someone there to challenge my decisions, because it meant that I had to be very sure of what I was doing.

What I have seen in my clinical experience however, is that a large portion of the people I worked with, typically improve with treatment and changes in their circumstances. that did not always meant that they didn't have other periods of struggle, but I had many a client actually thank me for detaining them, though at the time they would curse me vehemently. If someone really wants to kill themselves, they will do it in a way that cannot be prevented. Typically though, people give many signs that they are struggling to hold on, and are looking for help to get them through.

I have seen both scenarios, many times. People who don't want to do it, but feel so desperate and who just need help. They give signs that sometimes are missed. They make attempts that they think might be, or hope will be, or plan to be discovered, but circumstances get in the way, and they end up dying by accident. I have seen people who were thought to be doing well, who just make the choice and take care of their situation without any indication or chance to intervene.

I have moved away from the idea that people who commit suicide are selfish. They are typically just out of options on how to continue on in their lives. If we can intervene and give them a bit of space and really help them see other options, then I think it is a worthwhile endeavor. It shouldn't be done just because we think suicide is "bad" or "selfish" or "hurts others" though.

I also have evolved away from the "selfish" judgment.

When I was very young my mom used to say with great conviction: "Suicide is the coward's way out." I now realize she was pretty young herself then, but I also look back and wonder if it was her way of hanging on in a tough marriage, in order to be there for us kids. Another thing she told me (though only once) was that while she was bleeding out from one of her miscarriages she had an out-of-body experience where she actually made a decision to return because she knew that her head-in-the-clouds husband was going to be a seriously not-there father for the two of us who were then born, myself and my #1 brother, who were then about 4 and 3 y.o., respectively.

Later -- much, much later -- she changed her mind, as old age, intractable pain, and a deep and abiding fear of senility, made her look on having the option of ending it all much more favorably.

That's all she wanted: the option. Self-determination. Autonomy.

I evolved apart from my mother, because I moved away and my life-experiences took a different trajectory. But part of my life-experience was observing her and her struggles and choices, which I could not help her with no matter how I tried.

So even though I sometimes came to similar conclusions (such as suicide is *not* the "coward's way out") I got there by a different path.

Hekate

I think its unforunate if someone has temporary depression that could have been addressed, or some life experience causes them to act rashly. But by no means should anyone be obligated (by law) to exist simply in order to appeal to some moral standard or to bring happiness to those that love them.

No one should ever interfere with someone's choice to end their own life. Not for any reason.

That said, a compassionate society would at least offer its citizens a means to make imformed and reasonable choices, and alternatives otherwise.

I see your statement about offering reasonable choices and alternatives, but when you are contemplating suicide, it is typically because you are not seeing any other viable alternatives and it is a function of your mental/emotional state.

I have to ask then, if you had a 25 year old daughter with no terminal illness, and otherwise healthy, who fell on difficult times and became very depressed, who was getting treatment but was not responding very quickly to the modalities. She shows signs of planning her death by beginning to give away her possessions, canceling long term plans, terminating relationships, etc... You are saying that you or no one else should interfere and you should let your daughter kill herself?

...I meant to address in a more general sense. In that situation, I would naturally do all I could to help the person contemplating suicide, regardless of who it is, but I'd be especially eager to help someone close to me, as you suggest. But I would stop short of legally or physically preventing them-- ultimately, that decision has to be theirs to make, and I can do all I can to try and influence their decision, but I cannot presume to make it for them.

Maybe sometimes you just have to say goodbye, I think.

I worked in mental health for many years, and continue to work in social services. The situation I described is what many people face. Being suicidal is not the product solely of people with diagnosed mental illnesses. Life gets difficult for almost everyone at some point. Everyone copes as they can, some people have more obstacles, some people have less ability to deal with loss or stress. It is a very tough situation dealing with the human psyche. There isn't really a general scenario that predicts suicide attempts, just situations that correlate with factors that contribute to the decision.

If a person truly wants to kill himself or herself, they will find a way to do it regardless. There is nothing short of killing them that will prevent them from killing themselves. There was a young man who was hospitalized with an arms reach "sitter" stationed at the side of his bed. Literally arm's distance away, on shifts, 24 hours a day. A slight distraction was all that was needed for the man to get up, bound down the hallway at full speed and crash into the safety doors, caving in his head and causing his death.

I don't think that there should be arbitrary interference preventing someone from choosing to die, but I think that there is not a really point in time when you just give up hope in helping someone. I do agree with you that there has to be a letting go of the outcome and that you should not take over someone's life just to keep them alive. We maybe just draw the line in different places. As you say, sometimes you have to say goodbye and that may be the kindest thing to do. Sometimes a person does not want to die, but can't get help any other way than to put their lives in other people's hands for a bit.

"No one should ever interfere with someone's choice to end their own life. Not for any reason."

I do agree with your second sentence, though ...

I'd give you an individual answer but I've got to run....

I can see the reasoning for it.

I agree with the responders who stated that there isn't really any way of answering your query in a universally acceptable way.

I believe that the guy getting slammed for his viewpoint is getting slammed because he is arguing that being pro-life is the only logical conclusion of examination according to his point of view examining ethical factors and other issues. The people slamming him do not agree with that conclusion and are arguing the claim based on other angles of argument. While I may hold the point of view that abortion is something that is a serious situation that should not be taken lightly because of the impact on the women physically, emotionally, and psychologically, that is only my view and other people may not think that it is such a serious thing. Therefore, with respect to that issue, my views are only valid for me and I should not try to impose them on anyone else. The imposition of a structure (that everyone should logically be pro-life) seems to be what people who are opposed to that OP are responding to.

Regarding suicide, I agree with La Lionessa Priyanka, Mineral Man, and others who state that the decision to commit suicide is typically made when a person is in such an emotional state, that the decision making process is impaired. In other words, people who are at least content with their lives, and even those who are unhappy, as we can all be at some point, do not typically carry thoughts of suicide past the point of a fleeting thought (IE. thinking for a moment that death might bring relief from whatever is pressing). When a person reaches the point that suicide is a viable alternative, they have exhausted all of their emotional and cognitive facilities. There is some consensus among mental health professionals that preventing people from committing suicide, even through involuntary detention, will give the individual the opportunity to step back from that situation and realize that the decision may not have been the best one. Then again, as a former clinical director of mine once said, "If a person truly has made the conscious decision that life is not worth living, there is nothing in the world that will stop them." He consequently committed suicide very discretely and without indication or any explanation.

I think that suicide is something to be prevented, it should not be criminalized or derided.I do not think that there is a large group of people that advocate suicide as a wonderful thing. In the same vein, I have not seen people advocating abortion as something that should be done in lieu of contraception, or with glee. They are both decisions that have effects which extend beyond the person making the choice.

:)

His mind was fine, but his bones and joints were so far gone that he could not roll over, sit up, hold a book, or even feed himself. He loved the woods all his life, and to him being confined indoors was torture. Many times he said he wished he could "walk into the woods." But he was not able to move enough to give himself the gift of release from suffering. When he stopped eating, they fed him through a tube. He was trapped for the last four years of his life in a body he knew would never again carry him into the green seclusion he loved.

Not everyone who "really wants to" can commit suicide without help. My grandpa couldn't, and anyone who would have assisted him would've been prosecuted.

Tucker

Your grandfather was done a great injustice. If he had the faculties to make a decision not to continue living, then his wishes should have been respected and he should have been allowed to make a choice to not eat until he was out of his misery. My grandfather almost had the same thing happen to him. he was a strong healthy man, but he did not take the best care of himself. His wish was that when he got to the point where he was ill and unable to care for himself he also wanted to be allowed to die. His children agreed. In moments of desperation, his children decided to use extraordinary means to preserve his life. He struggled to free himself. It took the intervention of his adult grand children, including me, to get our parents to realize that they were disrespecting the man they feared, loved, and respected, by forcing him to accept care he clearly and rationally decided not to prior to his illness. I do understand that there are situations like your grandfather's and mine.

I am just relaying information that I have experienced in my work with populations where being suicidal and not wanting to continue living were relatively frequent occurrences and what I observed in my interactions and interventions.

I have mixed feelings about assisted suicide. In your grandfather's case and in the case of people with terminal and painful illnesses, I support the humanity of releasing people from their suffering. However, I can also imagine that it might be something that can be abused fairly frequently. There are a good deal of people out there who might think of "putting people out of their misery" when the situation is not warranted. Although starving to death is not a pleasant thought, I think that if that is the means by which someone who has made a rational decision that their quality of life is such that they are just suffering by being forced to remain alive, then it is something that needs to be respected and they should not be forced to remain alive.

and as far as is suicide ok? ultimately an individual decision that the rest of us dont have much say in.

I was thinking of how to qualify that yes, as certainly it should be a qualified yes, but I really can't come up with much in the way of sensible qualifications.

Age?
Should a terminally ill 12 year old be denied the right to end her life because she is not an adult?

Mental state?
Is the agony of mental illness less worthy of suicide than, for example, cancer?

My ex brother in law committed suicide. He was a very close friend and his death still haunts me till this day. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic but nobody new the extent of his mental illness. He hid it very well. Soon after he was diagnosed he killed himself.

His mother and brothers were devastated and will probably never really get over what happened. I understand why he did what he did. But the pain he left behind was devastating.

So suicide does hurt people and it should be illegal.

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how much pain, agony and grieve that causes family and loved ones. His suicide was needless. Yes he suffered from mental illness and you want to know how he killed himself he did it by putting a bag over his and suffacating himself shortly after the Heavens gate media news blitz back in the 90's. His suicide was basically do to his menatl illness and it was needless.

I don't have a problem with terminally ill people that wish to have assisted suicide that is different.

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Without an absolute right to give up a thing, one does not have a right to that thing.

I think voluntarily assisted suicide is a right, absolutely and without restrictions other than those applied to other contracts (such as need for informed consent, ability to enter the contract free of coercion, and legal ability to consent).

Tucker

There's no logical, necessary connection between the two things. :shrug:

And by extension all decisions relating to it...


Who does?

I strongly advise against it. Permanent solution for a temporary problem in many cases.

But fuck it. You want out? Get the fuck out.

:evilgrin:

:hide:

:rofl:

among certain segments - child molesters, serial killers, etc.

If someone is making a choice to end their life because say, they are suffering intense pain or physical problems and make a rational decision to end their life on their time table, that's one thing.

If someone is suffering from clinical depression, or other mental/mood disorder, then its a real tragedy for them to kill themselves when they may not be in place to make that decision rationally.

That's why we want to prevent suicides in those situations and instead try to get people some mental and emotional assistance....

But I do believe there are circumstances in which a person could make a rational, mentally sound decision to end one's life - and in theory I don't believe anyone should interfere with that.

I'd argue that a person facing a life-long depression ought to have the same right to assisted suicide as anyone else facing incurable painful illness.

Tucker

While I do think people have the absolute right to their own bodies, I think with mental illness, treatment should always be attempted. I do think most people who commit suicide have depression, bipolar disorder, or another mental illness; often, if not almost always, these can be treated. There are always new developments being made.

The world looked a lot brighter to me once I started on a mood stabilizer. My suicidality was not a rational state; while I was severely depressed, I was oblivious to the fact that there were those who cared about me and would have been devastated by my death.

You sound as if you have adjusted very well... good for you!

I agree... treatment should be attempted... but it can't be forced upon people, as I'm sure you know. It's a difficult situation.

Stay well!

:hug:

n/t

Is there nothing we have a right to? Do you have to get permission to bail out?
:puke:

Its part of a larger issue:

Who owns your life and your body?


What good is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from search and seizure, the right to bear arms...What good is healthcare if you don't own your life and body, and by extension all choices having to do with it?


What good are any of those things if the answer to the first question I asked isn't a resounding "I DO"?

And if the answer isn't "I do", than who does?




I support the rights of individuals to ownership of thier life and thier body. As such, that means to abort cells in the case of a woman regardelss of "quantity", to tatoo, pierce, ingest whatever one sees fit as one sees fit, and yes, even end ones own life as one sees fit.


For the life of me, I can't see why anyone with a spoon full of sense would let these issues be divided and conquered individually.

Ones body, ones choice. Simple as that. Compromise on any one, and the principal becomes broken.

the rest of us would not have much control.

I think the energy and focus should be on support for someone who may be suicidal, and on an extended hand and affirming friendship and loyalty.

Ultimately we have to respect someone's decision. We have limited control over that decision in the first place.

I would just like to take this opportunity to say thanks to the majority of you who took the time to write well-reasoned responses to my question. As many have said, it is a difficult subject. I know, in my case, I am going to be dragged off this rock kicking and screaming to the end (my philosophy is, as an atheist, we only have one kick at the cat and we better not waste it).

Property can be taken for non-payment of taxes. Stuff breaks. Jobs come and go (mostly go, these days). Friendships and marriages peter out. The only thing that we actually own outright is our physical beings, and that right of ownership is under assault everywhere.

That's why I support abortion rights, regardless of the circumstances. That's why I support assisted suicide for those with terminal, debilitating or just unbearably painful diseases.

If someone decides they no longer want to live, that is their choice. It's sad that it comes to that, and often people choose suicide to escape a situation or emotion that is temporary. Several guys I knew in childhood committed suicide in their teen years, a period frought with disturbing emotions and lack of perspective.

But ultimately, it's your body and your life.

If you want to end your life thats a decision you have to make for yourself, not someone doing it for you.

grief and not negative judgment for their suicides.

So your question is kind of moot. When Pro-Life is discussed here in context it's the opposite of pro-choice. The OP on that thread is personally anti-abortion but does not want his views forced onto others so he is still decidedly pro-choice. THat may not be the way he titled his thread but thems the facts.

Among those who are temporarily deeply depressed and desperate, people who fail in the attempt are often later glad that they lived.

Mental health care including medication needs to be available and accessible for such people, as well as various other forms of counseling for desperation: financial, marital, domestic violence, health...

I believe that those who are terminally ill, or those who are in pain that has no surcease despite the best pain management techniques, truly should have the option and the means to die if that is what they want.

There are times when the Crone in her death aspect comes in mercy.

Hekate

there will be a sudden uptick in suicides? I doubt it.

It's like the argument against gay marriage, that people will start marrying trees, box turtles, or their cats. I'm not sure it's really enough of a looming problem to justify the slippery slope argument.

As a baseline philosophical point, I believe people's bodies belong to themselves, not the government, the church, "God", what-have-you. I think we've gone horribly wrong and overboard in areas of telling consenting adults what they can and can't do with their own bodies. This goes for reproductive rights, this goes for the drug war, this goes for physician assisted suicide. Needless to say, I think that terminally ill people should absolutely have the right to a peaceful, pain-free exit of their own choosing. Maybe everyone should.

I'm less concerned about people being 'allowed' to kill themselves than I am about a mentality that says your personal life choices are something the government should be authorized to micro-manage.

regardless of how determined they were at one point.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what your point is. Hopefully everyone who is depressed or has a problem will get the help they need.

I know a person who had 3 children she was the sole supporter of these kids and she tried to commit suicide someone called the ambulence and her life was saved. She now is an adult and her children have grown into really wonderful people. What would have happened to that family if the emts said well it's ok she wanted to die so there is nothing we could do about it.

People get depressed and do desperate things. It doesn't mean that it's the right thing for society as a whole.

Like I said, if people really want to kill themselves, they will do it. If they want help, they hopefully will find it. If people want to intervene, people intervene.

Nothing in my post suggested that it's fine and dandy for people to off themselves. My point is, I'm more comfortable with individuals being the ones who we assume should have the final say about their own bodies-- as opposed to, say, the government.

I don't understand why that "argument" seems to deeply frighten some people, personally.

It's terminal.

My body, my choice.






and can we PLEASE do a better job treating mental illness !!

:shrug: