This is going off the other thread about the firefighters failing to save the suicidal drowning man... Do you think people have a right to kill themselves should they wish? If a man decides to jump out of a building and attempt to kill himself; is it wrong to stop him? Considering he/she really wants to, and it's not a result of some mental issue. I'm not going to make this vote public by the way. Although if you want to voice your opinion... do so by replying.
Considering it is not a result of some mental issue or temporary moment of insanity? Say John Doe loses faith in humanity (in some form or fashion) and as a response, offs himself?
Try and talk them down...remind them of their families and the good things in life. ....atleast try. In the end...if someone really wants to kill themselves...they're going to do it regardless of what anyone says.
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I believe in the right to kill yourself. I also believe in the right to save people from killing themselves.
I believe everyone has a right to do with as they will when it comes to ending their own lives. Most mental issues or instances of depression are hardly properly diagnosed. We overly medicalize the issue of depression and mental illness by handing out medication to nearly anyone who says they are depressed. It's hard to really know if someone who is standing on a building rooftop is mentally capable of making such a decision for themselves. Even those who know the suicide victim closely, they most all say, "I had no idea." So who knows better than the person themselves? When I worked in the morgue and a woman came in after her suicide we found during the autopsy that she had a tumor on her adrenal gland which can cause a shake up in the balance of chemicals. She had been visiting a psychiatrist for years. Her depression was medically related but had been taking pills. After being unable to cope with her crippling depression she took a myriad of pills, drank a twelve pack, and sank into her bathwater. However, when an older man came in after offing himself with a shotgun we learned that he had been living with prostate cancer that had metastasized into his bones. He was in pain daily and decided he no longer wanted to live. He was a journal writer so the cops were able to tell us that he had written notes and posted it on all manner of things as his "will" including a note for the police that stated that he had tried once, but the gun misfired and he was going back to try again. They found him neatly dressed, with his head laid on the pillow on the back porch so he "wouldn't make a mess." There were many cases of suicide that came through the morgue doors and all were different and for so many different reasons. As most are saying, someone who truly wants to commit suicide will succeed.
My father committed suicide quite recently. I don't know why he did it. He never left a note. He had come back from the hospital the night. before, and I thought everything was going to be ok. My mother was screaming at me to wake up the next morning, and there he was, slumped over the desk, bleeding, bullet wound through the cheek/temple area. I tried to stop the bleeding. The ambulance came and got him to the hospital but it was too late by the time they got him there. I never got to say goodbye properly, and part of me feels it was my fault. But, suicide is a right that a person has. My father was a smoker for 40+ years, and he was paying for it. He stopped a couple years after I was born, but the damage was done. Asthma, COPD (Emphysema + Chronic Bronchitis), UTI, possible prostate enlargement. He was living a tough life, had a lot of pride and he must've felt like he was a burden to us, my mother and I. But he wasn't. And now I regret not telling him that the night before... It's a right. People shouldn't have to suffer through illnesses and pain, even if their loved ones want them to stay.
It's kind of a catch-22 situation: you should allow it unless a person is of unsound mind -- and you know they are unsound if they want to kill themselves. I think in general, you don't allow it (people who are serious won't be deterred by the law anyway) because too many of people trying to commit suicide are not making rational choices. But, some kind of allowance should be made for people who have made a rational decision -- which I imagine mostly would center around euthanasia of ill people that medicine cannot help. And even then, it needs to be done in some official way. Court order?
How long will that process take, you think? Then those who are medically in pain must wait it out longer than before while some bureaucrats decide if you are allowed to do it. Then what if it comes back with a no stating that there isn't enough evidence to back up a suicide. Who really knows how much pain someone is in?
It's easy for everyone else to say now that most people have a good vision of life on this planet---after all, all of us have so much to thank for. but what about those to kill themselves because they truly have nothing left? The Tunisian who self-immolates himself because the police have seized his last way of gaining his livelihood? What if you are one of 1500 Indian farmers who suicided because of excessive crop debts last year? What of the mass suicides in 1945 Germany? Are you going to tell people to keep on living to appease your own conscience? Obviously suicides are bad, and should be discouraged, but what is the point of arguing for and against suicides, if you don't rectify the situations that lead to the deep disillusionment that runs within those who have espoused the most ultimate protest at the way they are forced to live?
The speed of the process would depend on what priority we put on it. If we cared a lot, it'd be quick. I'm just trying to think of a rational bureaucratic way to handle it. But, because of the nature of it, there's no reason why a person would have to wait on the system (unless, I suppose, they needed assistance). If the court takes too long, you move on without them. In the end, it'd be a farce because only rational actors would participate. People with an irrational desire to kill themselves wouldn't bother asking in the first place. The people who deserve the right would be delayed and those who don't would go ahead. Kind of like our immmigration apparatus.
There are many things that are currently illegal that I believe I have the right to do. In short: My body = My rules.
I think that looking at it at first the answer would be that person has the right to kill themselves if they want. But looking at it further if a person is in that state of mind they have some serious issues, and I think everything should be done to stop them and get them the help they need.
