why is suicide illegal ?

mike pain · (#1 (**permalink**))

the only reason i can see for baning it lies in religious dogma and doctrine....

essentially keeping a person alive just for the sake of doing it....

but isn't the right to trully choose to end ones life the ultimate in freedoms ?

the ultimate human right ?

after all we don't choose to be born, we have no power over our own births? but why not our deaths ?

afterall choosing to live in agony is not as absurd as choosing to die in bliss.

...

umbrarchist · (#2 (**permalink**))

It's only illeagal if you fail.

But the punishment is worse if you succeed.

More examples of suicide near-death experiences

um

Peacemaker · (#3 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike pain

the only reason i can see for baning it lies in religious dogma and doctrine....

essentially keeping a person alive just for the sake of doing it....

but isn't the right to trully choose to end ones life the ultimate in freedoms ?

the ultimate human right ?

after all we don't choose to be born, we have no power over our own births? but why not our deaths ?

afterall choosing to live in agony is not as absurd as choosing to die in bliss.

...

Because otherwise it would spread the idea that life isn't as valuable as you think, which generally isn't a good idea.

"Why treat old people for their illnesses?, they're going to die soon anyway" That perhaps would be a common thought throughout a society that doesn't frown upon suicide.. Can you imagine what the attitude towards teenagers who self-harm would be like?

It's a good line to draw...i.e a good societal moral guard, even if it seems like it doesn't serve a purpose.

meknow · (#4 (**permalink**))

I am sure that it is some ethical thingy. I have always heard it spoken of in religious circles as "self murder".

A few years ago I took care of my father who had been a farmer, logger, pulpwood contractor and various other jobs befitting to the rural locale. He got up before the sun rose until he was 83 years old. And was hardly ever in bed prior to 1000pm.

Worked very hard to feed his family all his life. He was still able to drive his tractor well into 82 even though we had to help him get onto the tractor. He still loved to take rolls of hay over into the pasture to feed his cows that he also saw after up till 83.

Alzhiemer manifested at 83 in his short term memory. And a hip replacement started going bad on him. His hip problem was so bad until he could not step down 6" from the door stoop to the ground without excruciating pain. He was basically confined to the house until we took him out for drives or to sit out in the yard or to a doctors appointment.

We got him one of those scooters and he was all over the highway with it so we had to take if from him.

I saw the saddest man in the world just deteriorating before my eyes. A once strong and virile man was reduced almost to a shell of himself. He asked many times for me to give him his pistol. I could not do it. I did understand why he would think such thoughts. At the end the nurse had given me morphine to help him with the pain of his hip. I was tempted to dose him up but never gave him more than the dose allotted.

It was really tough seeing him go through what he did.

I would not wish it on my enemy.

mike pain · (#5 (**permalink**))

most teenagers who self harm do it not to commit suicide but because either they want the attention or because , ironically, it's the only thing that makes them feel alive.

most old people that reach the age of dependence, most of their major organs have started to fail any way. and more than likely will be dead or severely debilitated. if as a very old man i will one day choose to take my own life because of senility, well the final choice should still be mine.

meknow · (#6 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike pain

most teenagers who self harm do it not to commit suicide but because either they want the attention or because , ironically, it's the only thing that makes them feel alive.

most old people that reach the age of dependence, most of their major organs have started to fail any way. and more than likely will be dead or severely debilitated. if as a very old man i will one day choose to take my own life because of senility, well the final choice should still be mine.

those circumstances could certainly be ahead of anyone of us, but it is difficult to digest. i have been in fields where i saw suffering.

almost as bad is when a loved one refuses to allow death to come within reason. I have seen people hooked up on life support. and i know of cases where people have revived. personally i have instructed my children as my parents did me to let me go.

RLB · (#7 (**permalink**))

Society measures itself by how it cares for its ill (in theory it does anyways). If you want to kill yourself, you can’t be sane so you must be insane or at the vary least ill and therefore you need help.

In the case of terminally ill people, the bible says its against gods law to kill yourself basically because, people who have vary little in this world would kill themselves to get to ‘paradise’ sooner. This country is still Christian based but only when it suit itself to be.

Also, pressure could be placed on people to end their lives. For example let’s say you have a elderly woman who is well off financially, her greedy children want to cash in on their inheritance but the old codger just won’t die. She’s 97 and shows little sign of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel any time soon. Her family could subtlety put pressure on her to over dose on her blood pressure medication and then…..PARTY ££££

£££!!!

Let’s say a police man was walking down a busy high street, he looks up and sees a guy climb out of a office building and stand on the ledge prepared to jump, if suicide wasn’t illegal, the officer would not have any duty to intervene, he could continue to walk his beat. Can you image that?

As much as we may think this is a ‘Big Brother’ state it doesn’t have eyes everywhere ….yet. The law recognises that it can’t stop people from actually killing themselves in private but it (the law) deputises us all and says that we all have a duty to prevent someone, be it a family member or a complete stranger, from killing themselves. If we stand by and just watch we could be arrested and charged with assisted suicide or some other charge.

Like I said the law knows it can do little to stop you, but it sure as hell isn’t going to help you. A woman has an argument with her boyfriend and decides to ‘show him’ -as is the way with women. She pops into her local chemist and asks the pharmacist “So what have you got the will kill me the quickest and with the least amount of pain?” The pharmacist hands her a bottle with a cyanide table in it and charges her £10.50!

And all this is legal? Would your feeling be towards the chemist if that was your girlfriend sister or daughter?

The law makes sense in theory, but in practise we know things aren’t always so clear cut.

This debate only really becomes a complicated one when talking about people so ill so racked with pain that they are confined to bed and so can’t end their lives without assistance form someone else but that leads back to my second point.

meknow · (#8 (**permalink**))

Can you imagine walking down the lane and a guy on the stoop is holding a gun to his head and you just glance and make sure the angle is not toward you and you go on?

I am not so sure that the bible mentions anything on suicide. There are inferrences, like "your body is the temple of God". and a few other.

I have even heard Christians say that suicide is the unpardonable sin. Not so. The only sin that can not be forgiven is the sin of blaspheme of the Holy Spirit or the rejection of the Savior. They are the same.

Suicide is when a person comes to a point of seeing no way out. Heavy dispare. Hopelessness...

There is always hope...There are some physical malady's that are retchid. i remember a cousin of mine who died from AIDES. It was horrible at the end, he was on morphine the last few weeks. He mentioned that the pain was unbearable.

This world deals some awful hands to us. Is this all that there is....

RLB · (#9 (**permalink**))

The bible says it is wrong to commit murder and suicide is still murder, but just more socially acceptable form of it.

But I will admit I am not the world’s foremost expert when it come to interpreting the bible, I usually can only hold one for about 30 seconds before it burst into flames.

But your right, we do have to cope with some nasty things which is where religion comes in. It gives us a bit of hope - unless you’re an atheist, then you’re life is pretty miserable.

Sorry to hear about you cousin, that sure as hell isn’t any way for anyone to go.

meknow · (#10 (**permalink**))

You are correct, murder is a sin. I was thinking more in the vain of people saying that self murder (suicide) was the sin that was unforgivable. Not true.

I am not expert but I do study.

Mokele Mbembe · (#11 (**permalink**))

What IS illegal is assisted suicide. Killing somebody else because they asked you to. That is called murder. You can't prove a person was competent to make such a decision, the request in itself casts doubts on state of mind.... and also you don't have a legal right to take lives.

RLB · (#12 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Watcher

What IS illegal is assisted suicide. Killing somebody else because they asked you to. That is called murder. You can't prove a person was competent to make such a decision, the request in itself casts doubts on state of mind.... and also you don't have a legal right to take lives.

Yeah, assisted suicide is illegal, but so is being a passive witness to suicide. Having knowledge that a person intends to kill themselves and not informing the ‘authorities’ could, in theory, get you in serious trouble.

I don’t think the law seriously seeks prosecutes people for this due to the fact that nothing would be accomplished by doing as people will still commit suicide and friends and loved one will still honour their 'dying wishes', it would cost huge sums of money and most importantly, there would be majour public out-cry as recently bereaved family members were dragged to court in handcuffs leaving people wondering why the hell their taxes are being used to bully those they consider to be victims.

It's all one huge complex subject forutunatly most of us aren't studying criminal law.