There is an assumption here that suicide is wrong and that everyone agrees with that statement. But why is suicide wrong? An appeal to the divine won't work if the suicidal person doesn't believe in a god, so what is it about suicide that makes it intrinsically wrong?
I guess Moegreche is right, but the public opinion on suicide is that it is caused by mental disorders and since and like all diseases we can't remove the disease, but instead remove the symptoms. I guess people against suicide are just doing what is instinctively right.
Suicide is wrong because not only are you ending your own life, but your hurting everyone who cares for you as well. though I need to think about this a bit more because i still thinks it's wrong if someone who has no one to care for him to commit suicide, other then it's just wrong to kill your self, and whatever your going through can be solved another way.
It's getting to be an old theme, but in order to discuss suicide effectively, one needs to allow for a more measured consideration of death itself first.
The will to live may be, in a sense instinctual but it just so happens we've treated it in a way that is now counterproductive. Saying 'suicide is wrong' is not going to do one iota of good for anybody who might be considering it.
I should be illegal. It is murder because it is the killing of a human, so therefore it should be illegal. Regardless of who it is is it not technically murder? it is almost as if people who are deranged or depressed enough to kill them selves are not even them.
I should be illegal. It is murder because it is the killing of a human, so therefore it should be illegal. Regardless of who it is is it not technically murder?
Gee, making statements about life and death on a legal basis? Think about it. You're suggesting something completely useless.
On that note, I'm not sure- can you still actually be arrested and criminally charged for attempted suicide?
Um last time I checked, a legal basis is pretty important. I am saying that the killing of a human being is illegal, and you are killing one, so technically it should be illegal. I am not saying anything useless at all. What people hint when the criticize that is "Oh it's just one less person". In that case we might as well let all killers loose and not punish them because hey, for every person they kill, it's only one less.
I think that you can get arrested for attempted suicide if the "degree" of it is bad enough. It has happened before i am just not sure what the basis is or how they judge it. I am pretty sure though the just do a scale of the degree and just make the arrest based of the level of the degree of the suicide.
@Ricador:I think the legal basis for making suicide illegal (and attempting to commit most crimes is a crime in and of itself) is that then there's a legal remedy for forcing a person into mental health programs.
In the case of the pathologically ill, where living is pain, should assisted suicide be legal? From an ethical standpoint, people should have an obligation to reduce suffering. Does killing a terminally ill person cause more suffering that keeping them alive and in pain? I don't know.
The problem is assisted suicide is if someone is in a fit mental state to say they want to die, and if the person assisting them is killing them and claiming assisted suicide. Hard questions, those.
I'm an atheist, but I still think healthy people shouldn't commit suicide. Even if it's not a sin, you only get one chance at life, and whatever the bad things you have going on, eventually they will pass or you will overcome them. So I think people should do what they can to convince people away from suicide and into being a productive happy member of society.
