Should Suicide Be Legal?

[matak 2]

If a parent lives to see his child take his own life it his a horrible thing.. If a child lives to that his parent takes his own life it is something even worse, for the psyche of that child. For someone who tries to end his life, and fails punishment is not the answer. That can't be a crime! Only crime is the crime of our society that leads someone to that decision.At the peak of our glorious race, when technology, standards and kulture reach it's highest levels throughout the whole history of human kind certain individuals are driven to that mad act. You, me or anybody can't be the judge of other one's psyche! All of this fast life that drives people to accumulation of richness and wealth, making them feel "I want more, i want more", and even when they get that more it isn't enough.Some people are just left behind.Remember yourself seeing a sad face of person sitting alone in the park, his eyes glazing into emptiness of his surroundings, how did you react?Did you maybe approach that person and asked her the problem, or did you just look the other way!It is easy to judge, and talk about knowing better. But sometimes just smile, one single, small, sencier smile can mean more than whole books, schools and meanings of this whole life together.Remember to smile, and not to judge. Try to feel the pain of your neighbour and embrace it. Try to help and live with it, try to give it a meaning.Suicide is not the answer, life is.

[arnz 0]

If the person wants to do it, then that is their choice. But seriously though, they should consider getting help and/or if seen trying to harm themselves by authoritive figures (ie cops), then they should really get the person to a hospital and/or pysche ward rather than a police station.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

I DO NOT think that suicide should be illegal, i think this because it is their life, their body, their decision, if someone over the age of 21 can make the decision to kill themselves by smoking, then people should not have to worry about it being illegal to kill themselves.

 

I for one am not for suiaicide, i have talked many of my friends out of it and helped them through it after they wanted to do it so badly.

 

If someone commites suiacide, who will there be to blame if the person who did it is dead? are you going to go to the family and see if they were making the persons life hell to cause them to do what they did and imprison them? I think not.

[master_bacarra 0]

well, your problem woudn't be solved because you're already dead. it should be illegal because it's still killing, even if the one you're killing is yourself. although i haven't seen anyone who didn't continue with killing themselves and end up in jail for suicide attempts. i for one have seen a lot of deaths in our community, and the common factor among these is they couldn't cope up with a break up.

 

I DO NOT think that suicide should be illegal, i think this because it is their life, their body, their decision, if someone over the age of 21 can make the decision to kill themselves by smoking, then people should not have to worry about it being illegal to kill themselves.

 

are we talking about the same kind of suicide? i mean like the ones you put a gun over your head and pull the trigger or slash your pulse kind of suicide? i don't think smoking is by any form of suicide. it's a habit. but i do agree that a person has his rights because it's his body, but it doesn't mean he can just abuse it, what more destroy it.

 

If someone commites suiacide, who will there be to blame if the person who did it is dead? are you going to go to the family and see if they were making the persons life hell to cause them to do what they did and imprison them? I think not.

 

tsk. so you mean if someone attempts suicide and fails, you're going to blame him? that's rubbish. you're just making things complicated than it already is. blaming someone for taking his own life isn't a solution to the person's problem. i thought you're gonna help them? true the family kinda has a responsibility for the actions especially the parents. but blaming doesn't really help. Edited January 8, 2007 by mbacarra (see edit history)

[Kubi 0]

Awsome! I'm 18, now I can commit suicide! Always wanted to try this....Only 3 more years then I can drink....You'd think if that were the case they'd atleast let you drink at 18 aswell....Suicide is just plain idiotic. No one has it bad enough that they need to commit suicide, anyone can get help...This is probably the first and last time I'll every state something that comes from the bible, but if you believe it the bible, and god, suicide is a sin. Says it right there if I'm not mistaken. So that's probably why it's illegal.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

are we talking about the same kind of suicide?

People who smoke might as well be committing suiacide, ya smoke a half a pack a day for a year you get 8-10oz of tar in your lungs. That kills your lungs, which causes breathing problems, and cancer, which causes death, so it might as well be concidered suiacide.

tsk. dry.gif so you mean if someone attempts suicide and fails, you're going to blame him? that's rubbish

well what do you do make something illegal? they make it punishable by a fine, or jail time. and no what i said is if someone does committe suiacide and they kill themselves, who are you going to point this crime at? if it's illegal someone needs to pay the price, whether it be jail time or money.

Yes it is a matter of blame. Stealing is illegal, punishable by jail time, killing, punishable by jail time and or death, rape; jail time, so what's next? Sucessfull Suiacide; make those who made his life hell pay, Unsuccessful Suiacide; Put them in jail or a fine? making it illegal doesn't make sense.

Awsome! I'm 18, now I can commit suicide! Always wanted to try this....Only 3 more years then I can drink....You'd think if that were the case they'd atleast let you drink at 18 aswell....

i never said that after a certian age they can commit suicide legally, i put the age thing there for the purpose of pointing out that after 21 people can kill themselves by smoking. as for the bible, *screw* what it says

[master_bacarra 0]

well what do you do make something illegal? they make it punishable by a fine, or jail time. and no what i said is if someone does committe suiacide and they kill themselves, who are you going to point this crime at? if it's illegal someone needs to pay the price, whether it be jail time or money.

 

just because the person responsible for the death is already dead and that there's no one else who should take the blame, doesn't make it a canditate for legality. it is illegal in a sense that it is still killing life. just because it's illegal doesn't mean it should always be paid by some materialistic price or an equivalent time in jail. you can't charge someone who committed suicide and let him pay fine for killing himself, or throwing his lifeless body in jail. for those religious people, suicide is equivalent to a sin that the soul is burned in hell for eternity.

 

Yes it is a matter of blame. Stealing is illegal, punishable by jail time, killing, punishable by jail time and or death, rape; jail time, so what's next? Sucessfull Suiacide; make those who made his life hell pay, Unsuccessful Suiacide; Put them in jail or a fine? making it illegal doesn't make sense.

 

making it legal woudn't make sense either. successfull suicide would give a scar to those who were left behind. those who probably care more about the person. as the cliche goes, "life will never be the same". those who would be bugged by their conscience would probably end up blaming themselves and in the worst case scenario, suicide. the emotional scar will be deep. unsuccessful suicide would have a psychological effect to the one who attempted the feat (for lack of a better term). studies show that people who attempts suicide have the tendency to become mentally challenged (politically correct term).

 

the point is not about who's to pay or who's to blame. it's about the effect of making such stuff legal.

[FLaKes 0]

I dont see how it can be illegal. How are you going to charge someone who is killed himself? Like some angry person in jackass said, "a dead man, cant sue nobody".... nor be sued. If you are talking about the people who kill others with bombs strapped to their body then I guess it should definitely not be legal since their objective is other people and if they get caught in the attempt then they should be charged or something.

[johnsmith 0]

"Now assisted suicide is a whole different story, I believe that assisted suicide is absolutely retarded, anyone who "Assists" someone on killing themselves should go kill themselves as well because they are worthless and meaningless to the world."What an enlightened point of view...So people who are too sick to even more their tongue and plea the doctors to stop the machines so that they can stop their painful existence are idiots too ?So, our ENLIGHTENED human civilisation can't even tolerate one's freedom to choose their own path ? So, it's retarted to help someone exit from his/her misery (think, someone who can't take his own life because he's unable to do anything, for example, because of an accident).Even most of the pan-idiotic religions of this planet don't condone suicide, helping someone take his life...for some silly reasons...You really expect that you won't go to paradise because you tried to take your life ? Paradise ? 10year old myth-stories to frighten people so that they have a certain code of behaviour ?People have gone a long way from their early Primate ancestors but I still feel that their perverted sense of good and evil is more clouded than ever before...If we find stupidity in freedom, then the next step is to find reason for the killings (Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq) no matter if they are small children or soldiers, we'll find sense in genocide (Pontus, Armenia), we'll find logic in seperation based on social micro-differences....Maybe you don't see the connection at first but, maybe you don't even find the connection between suicide-helping others take their lives when they can't and freedom...In the end, it's another small rock of the wall that was built to protect the vanity of our species.

[communitykat 0]

I definitely think that it should be legal. This is an area where I really don't think the law should get involved. A life is very personal, and most likely spiritual. Everyone has different spiritual beliefs (I am not talking about religion, but about the perspective each has on life and life's purpose). For instance, if one were to believe that life is a form of disipline for ones spirit, and/or one choose the life he/she wants to lead before he is born. If the worlds environment (social, political, etc) has a negative effect on ones progression toward a higher being, then maybe it would be better to kill ones self, save the good works one has done to ones soul and return to build upon that in the next life. You get what I mean. Also, free will is a huge part of our mortal lives To be or not to be is a most personal choice that can only be made by ones own free will.

[salamangkero 0]

Think bout dis.... if you were able to commit suicide then many people who do it and hurt someone else...

Ahh, the fallacy of the slippery slope. First off, this only works under the assumption that those who commit suicide leave behind people who want them back. Think about it, who will be hurt when a starving orphan drowns himself? Will you be hurt if a leper/bum died right on the opposite side of the world? Oh, please don't say, "I will be hurt, because I'm human. I care," 'coz, really, that's bull$#!+. You won't even know of their deaths, just like the rest of the planet.

 

If a parent lives to see his child take his own life it his a horrible thing.. If a child lives to that his parent takes his own life it is something even worse, for the psyche of that child. For someone who tries to end his life, and fails punishment is not the answer. That can't be a crime! Only crime is the crime of our society that leads someone to that decision.

Uh, yes? I didn't exactly get the entire gist of it but it did spark an insight. About leaving behind people hurt by an act of suicide, if these people really cared, then why didn't they strive to better the victim's condition right before he took his own life? IMHO, a parent who eventually leads his/her child to suicide, whether directly or indirectly, and, later on, mourns for the great loss is a total hypocrite.

 

Suicide is not the answer, life is.

Ahh, yet another pro-lifer's hasty generalization. Must I expound more on the weak foundation behind this statement?

 

are we talking about the same kind of suicide? i mean like the ones you put a gun over your head and pull the trigger or slash your pulse kind of suicide? i don't think smoking is by any form of suicide. it's a habit. but i do agree that a person has his rights because it's his body, but it doesn't mean he can just abuse it, what more destroy it.

On the contrary, smoking indeed is suicide. First, it has no known physiologically beneficial effect. Almost anyone who lights up a stick knows darn well how dangerous that stuff is. Also, it may be a habit but it is not something that any person is born with. There is always a first time, a turning point in a person's life that will determine whether he/she lives on to smoke or lives on even longer to not smoke. I do think it is suicide or just a slower form of it.

 

No one has it bad enough that they need to commit suicide, anyone can get help...

Ahh, yes. Anyone can get help, isn't it? Ask and you shall receive, isn't it? Where there's a will, there's a way, isn't it? Well, here's what I think: If they did get help, would they be dead now?

 

See, I have observed that there are a lot of people here who are pro-lifers, quite a handful of you partially driven by religious beliefs. However, I do think we are doing all suicide victims a great injustice in just assuming that they all "took the easy way out" and died without a fight.

 

See, I don't think people will take their own lives if they are aware there is another way out. The problem is, they're not and it's not because they haven't looked for answers hard enough, it's just that they don't have the eyes needed to spot the solution. Simply put, they did try to get help, only they didn't get any.

 

Indulge me and walk into my fantasy. Suppose you were mistakenly put alone into a ship that was catapulted into interstellar space. You're really hungry but you don't know which console buttons to press so you could get a Happy Meal. As a matter of fact, there are only two buttons on the panel: a green one and a red one marked "Self-Destruct"

 

I know the sensible of you guys will press the green button but, unfortunately, it shuts down the air-conditioning unit. Not only are you hungry now but you're also cold and beginning to freeze your @$$ off. In despair, maybe, some of you might keep on pressing the green button for n times, all to no avail. What else will you do? It seems the only choices you have are between an excruciatingly long and painful death and a swift and painful death.

 

I have no doubt most of you will either press the red button or just helplessly freeze or starve to death.

 

Back on Earth, I will be laughing. I'd think, "What an idiot. If he had pressed that green button just once more, he'd be teleported back into the warm and toasty confines of his own home." A co-conspirator, who also happened to be a priest, would say, "Tsk, he/she gave up too easily." An eccentric friend of mine would pipe in, "If only he sought the answers from the stars... (Interstellar space is very conducive to astrology), he would have known that there are n+1 red giants in view. If he just pressed that green button one more time..."

 

If it weren't for the fact that your non-decaying body is in interstellar space and had no coffin or casket to shelter it, I'm sure you would have rolled in your graves.

 

See, that's also what's happening. Please don't feel like every suicide victim is so beneath you for having performed what you deem to be the taboo act of self-destruction. Please don't just mindlessly say life is the answer simply because it is what the religion taught you. Don't be insensitive and say suicide is not the answer or "Whatever it is, it's bearable," because, if I was a betting man, I'd bet life has been relatively good to you and you don't know what you're talking about. Don't be judgmental and say they gave up too easily or made the wrong choice because there's always another way 'coz frankly, I don't think they'd give a )@mn about alternatives if they couldn't see it or, worse, if it is denied to them.

 

Honestly, though, I don't think we should even be asked whether suicide should be legal or not. When it comes to situations harsh enough to push a man (or woman) on the brink of bringing about his/her own death, does it matter whatever the law says?

 

Just my two cents (which, I'm aware, happened to be so long, I think it'd make a dollar or two)

[heavensounds 0]

I think that today there is no talking about the preciousness of human life. The sole fact that we are born as humans and not as something else is a very rare and preciouss thing that should be respected! You were given a gift and you are tryin' to throw it away??The biggest problem of suicide is, that it doesn't solve anything, since all you did in this life, you will carry on in the next one and so on, BUT making a suicide is a bad karmic action and you will have to pay for doing that..Therefore there is no reason to make a suicide, since it doesn't solve anything (you remember all the pain and you experience all the pain again and again)...If it is forbidden to make a suicide with some sort of law, then at least a few people won't make a suicide that maybe would have, if this law would not exist...and in their future life, they would have realized that life is precious...SO, I voted for NO - suicide should not be legal, because it prevents at least a few bad karmic actions

[master_bacarra 0]

for what it's worth, the thread starter should be blamed you wanna know why? because you're misleading the readers. your topic title doesn't match your poll question. so most likely everyone who reads the title in the last post section below would assume that the poll question would be the same. and most likely most of you (even me, perhaps), have voted for the wrong answer, or at least the opposite of what you should have answered.

[alexviii 0]

Actuy guy, I pewrsonaly think that as we hve no right to give to our self and to other "more life", we also have no right to give to or self or to other "less life". I mean to give n take life. Secondly, even if every man if free to do what ever he want, at list this sould not be legal. When I'm in my car, the law says that I have to put the belt and this is in order to protect me. So the law, and the state, have to protect every man from dying, and this shoul include suicide by logic. In the same time, If I kll and so I act gainst the law, I need to be punished. In case o suicide, I can't be punished. In this case, the law it is a way to set me a sin with no waqy to redict my self. 10x bye

[morosophos 0]

The Functions of Suicide

 

If suicide possessed a 100% success rate with the full intention of ending the self, it would be a far simpler issue. However, there are many other factors that contribute to suicidal thoughts: suicide is a more sophisticated issue than just killing oneself.

 

Although it is easy to imagine that the suicidal mind is far from reasonable, such a mind is many long strides from deciding that its own destruction for destruction's sake is favorable. Very few people commit suicide in order to experience death (with exceptions permitted for radical cults), but rather death is a medium to end the suffering in life. The situation is such that life in unbearable, not such that death is favorable. Suicide is not so much destructive as fugitive. When life seems to be unsustainable, death becomes a viable alternative to the endurer.

 

Suicide has even uses outside of ending suffering. Many who attempt suicide observe that others who had the same endeavor received attention, having been grieved over by their families and having received elaborate burials. Such ceremonies contort suicide into an honorable exit, making suicide attempt appear even more appealing. Some people enter into suicide attempts not to kill themselves, but to feign the will to end themselves; they are not mentally ill so much as desparate for attention.

 

Legal Implications

 

The nature of law and punishment is corrective; the judicial system strives to mould the perpetrator into a just creature who abides by the law. Although arguably many sentences feed the purpose of revenge (such as in murder cases, or any other situation where there is a severe offence), rulings by a court are ideally related to the motive of the perpetrator. Having analyzed the motives, one can see that there is not any one punishment justifiable in all suicide cases.

 

Obviously if the offender completed the suicide, there is not much punishment he can sustain.

 

If the offender attempts suicide because life is unbearable, this is mental illness. Not often does it occur that affairs are truly so grim that death is a better alternative to life, yet one suffering through those things may think otherwise. As far as the sufferer is concerned, he or she is making the logical choice and probably one that is beneficial to the most people (If I were not born, the world would be a better place, etc.). As other mentally ill persons, he or she should see psychiatric specialists and counseling?not be met with prison, fines, or deprivation of privileges on account of the law.

 

If the offender attempts suicide for the sake of getting attention, the offender is not mentally ill, only desparate. Desparate people who end their lives because they are unbearable are not the same kind of desparate: they possess mental complexes that inhibit them from seeing the good in their lives; the source of the problem is from within the mind. Contrarily, those who attempt suicide have reasoned that the attempt will gain attention, and they never complete suicide, nor attempt it in private. Because there is no mental illness, their crimes (crimes that are the only real crimes in suicide) must be differently handled.