Why is suicide bad?

Great Debates
1

I read the CNN story about the teenage girl who killed herself, supposedly with the encouragment and assistance of a Usenet community, alt.suicide.holiday. I visited the newsgroup and lurked. I saw the expected influx of people telling the regulars there that ther were horrible murderers and how the membership reacted.

One thing that came out of my looking at the posts there was that you could call them “pro-suicide” only if you wanted to be political about it. The members all claimed that they were all really “pro-choice,” in that they felt that if a person decided that they did not want to live anymore and had the courage to actually take steps to achieve that goal, that there was nothing wrong with it. A look at the last thread that the girl did shows responses that are neither begging hetr to reconsider, nor saying they were glad she was doing it - only non-judgmental well wishes to a “safe trip” since that’s what she really wanted.

Sure, my first thought was probably the same as yours: How can anyone send well wishes when a perfectly healthy, albeit unhappy 19 year old is taking a cyanide overdose to intentionall end her life.

Then I got to thinking… I’m a Libertarian and a big supporter of personal liberties. I believe that everyone should be able to do with their life what they want. If I want to be non-hypocritical about this view, I have to say that a person has the right to end their life if they so choose and that if I knew that this was what they really wanted, I shouldn’t stand in their way.

Of course, that sounds horrible as well, even though the ASHers (the regs from the Usenet group call themselves that) actually embrace that attitude and use the group as a place for others like them to congregate and talk to each other about things.

So I am torn here… Am I being inconsistant if I exclude the right to end one’s life as a right that we all should have regardless of laws or popular opinion? Or am I a monster if I don’t?

And at the end of the day, like the subject says, why is suicide bad?

2

I think you should only be able to end your own life (legally) in cases where you are terminally ill and don’t want to suffer the pain or degradations of the progression of said illness.

The reason I think suicide is bad (and this comes from someone who has lost someone they loved to suicide) is because I don’t think people who commit suicide are ever of a “sound mind.” They are either suffering extreme depression or some other mental condition that makes them feel they need to end their lives. Suicide is like a fatal heart attack, it can be caused by various things but what it ultimately is is the fatal result of any number of mental health conditions (some of them ill-defined or not defined at all.) I think that most people who are suicidal can somehow be helped, through pyschiatry or some form of direct medical care, and that is a big reason suicide is so tragic. It’s another life lost because the health care community was unable to address the problems.

We should never allow someone to commit suicide or be supportive of them trying to commit suicide anymore than a nurse should allow a patient in the ICU to flip off their own life support system.

3

It used to be said that homosexuality was only for people “not in their right minds.” I’m not comparing homosexual thoughts to suicidal ones, but I am saying that I find it as assumptive to say that anyone who is suicidal must be not in sound mind as I do that all homosexuals are also not of sound mind.

I don’t find it impossible that someone might not want to live and, after exhausting all attempts to find a reason to change his or her mind, finally decides that the simples thing is to stop looking and end it.

I am sorry you were touched by suicide, but that might be one reason that you reject the possibility as repugnant and/or impossible.

4

Show me an example of someone without some serious mental or emotional issues killing themselves. Show me someone logically and calmly coming to the conclusion that they need to kill themselves and yeah, I’m fine with that.

I know fully well you can’t find such a situation.

Part of government’s goal is to protect its citizens. If we can’t protect our mentally ill or clinicaly depressed, then I’m not sure why we have government in the first place.

I think I understand why confused issues like this come up. More and more we’ve been moving towards a socially liberal society where people are allowed to do what they wish with their private lives. But that can and does go too far when we’re talking about the State standing idly by while people are losing their lives to medical issues.

5

I think suicide is a bad thing, that it most often hurts a lot of people, it is most often a needless waste of life, that it should be strongly discouraged and that it is the mark of a responsible, civilised person that they will attempt to curtail it. However, is it really fair and just that society should forcibly compel people to continue living?

I don’t buy the circular reasoning that ‘suicide is something people only ever attempt when they are mentally unbalanced, and we know they are mentally unbalanced because they attempt suicide’ - it can’t possibly be that simple.

6

I don’t have to - YOU did. You mentioned it in your own quote. You gave a pass to “cases where you are terminally ill and don’t want to suffer the pain or degradations of the progression of said illness.”

Why does someone like that have your permission but not someone who simply feels that they have no real reason to live anymore? What gives you the right to decide who is in enough pain and feels enough degradation to allow them to off themself?

I happen to feel that the individual has a better ability to make such a decision than you do. Do you always write off anyone who disagrees with your views as “unsound mentally?” If not, then why now?

There you go with the assumption that anyone who kills themself has to have mental problems. There are a lot of choices that people make that I don’t agree with - some of which are undoubtedly bad for them. But I don’t say that anyone who makes those choices is nuts.

The government’s job is not to protect someone who doesn’t feel that they need protection. At least it shouldn’t be.

So people don’t have the right to die - unless you personally approve of their situation. In which case they’re clearly nuts. Is that where we stand here?

I will try and make this brief: Some people think that life sucks and they feel zero desire to continue. Read the non-trolling posts at the Usenet group I linked for evidence of this. Are all of those people nuts? Maybe… But I feel that I lack the ability to make that diagnosis.

Incidentally, your whole argument is fallicious: Ssaying that they’re nuts because they want to kill themselves because anyone who would want to kill themselves is nuts is circular logic at its finest.

7

I was composing while you posted it so you beat me… But good catch. :slight_smile:

8

I’ve been suicidal more than once in my 40-odd years. I can tell you exactly how the mind of at least one suicidal person works, including the perfectly logical looking reasons why my life served no purpose and why society as a whole was better off with me dead. Specifically, I could tell you how my mind was operating three years ago, when I was an active member of this board, but had been laid off with no prospect of work in my field in sight.

I operate Cecil’s Place, a support group for Dopers with clinical depression and I have done all I can to talk at least one person out of committing suicide. I’ve found out first hand that it can be treated successfully and an utterly bleak, hopeless, useless-looking life can improve.

Three years ago, I was lonely, out of work, out of hope, and feeling like a drain on society. I’d even walked out of my church. I couldn’t see any reason why my continued existence would benefit anyone, including or perhaps especially myself. I survived, thanks to a very good therapist. I eventually found work back in my field at a company I like working for. I’ve joined a new church which continues to surprise me in wonderful ways. I’ve even met a wonderful man and spent the long Thanksgiving weekend out of state meeting his family for the first time. He knows what I’ve gone through and why to some extent, although he doesn’t fully understand. He’s also amazed that I could consider myself worthless or useless.

Because of my own experiences with depression and being suicidal, I consider an otherwise healthy person’s suicide to be a bad thing. More accurately, I consider the circumstances which lead to a person’s reaching the state where they see suicide as the only logical way out to be a bad thing, just as I see someone suffering agony from any other treatable medical condition to be a bad thing. When things were at their worst, my therapist asked me if I thought homeless people should be executed because they were a drain on society. Horrified, I said, “No!” She then asked me why the double standard as applied to myself. Is allowing a person suffering from a physical ailment to die of it without treatment a good thing? If not, why then would allowing someone to commit suicide be a good thing?

CJ

9

Firstly, I should extend my sympathies for your loss, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you on this issue.

My first point is one that others have made - if you regard it as legitimate for someone to kill themselves to avoid pain and suffering, why should there be a condition that this pain has to be caused by a physical illness?

How would you respond to someone who regards death as preferable to being locked up in a mental hospital? Is making such a statement proof of insanity? For that matter, do you believe that people should have the right to refuse medical treatment, even if that leads to an earlier death than they might otherwise expect?

But isn’t this what euthanasia, which you apparently support, involves? I can understand (although I would disagree with) someone who claimed that it’s always wrong to accelerate death, that it’s the duty of a doctor or society as a whole to keep everyone alive as long as possible, no matter how poor a quality of life they have; but this isn’t consistent with allowing suicide in the case of terminal illness.

And, for that matter, we’re all terminally ill. We all will die eventually; what rational grounds are there for not allowing us to choose our own time?

I accept that there may be specific arguments against a particular person committing suicide, but I don’t think that a case can be made for a blanket prohibition.

10

We could ask if suicide is good in any way ? I feel that only if with terminal illnesses and pain that is justified as “good”.

Naturally one might claim to be suffering from acute pshycological “pain” and I agree with the OP that the “pro-choice” seems more in line with what many of us support in other issues.

Legal restrictions similar to euthanasia could be applied to voluntary suicide… like a 1 month period of waiting. Psychological evaluation certainly could be mandatory. Like someone said… after all this if someone can truly be considered sane and willing to kill himself… why stop him ?

11

Earlier thread on subject: Is suicide a fundamental right?

I already stated my position there, but basically I agree with JSLE that it should be allowed (though I advocate a waiting period). Also I can think of plenty of reasons why someone would choose to end their life that have nothing to do with mental illness. Chronic pain, for one. Insurmountable financial problems, for two. Guilt/regret over a bad thing done in one’s life, for three. Insurmountable political situation which affects one’s life directly, for four (would you blame a women living under the Taliban if she took her own life?). Should I go on? Sure, you could say that none of those people would have killed themselves if they weren’t so weak psychologically, but not everyone has a will of steel.

Also, in many cases mental illness IS terminal, as in never getting better, always getting worse, even if it doesn’t kill someone. It can’t always be fixed with a pill. Can’t you at least see how someone would rather die than have to live in an institution all their lives, or never have a meaningful job or a relationship? It’s not necessary to talk about how your own mental illness was cured in response to this; if you can post here you’re not the kind of person I’m talking about.

12

While I agree that many people can be treated for depression or other mental illness, and no longer want to end their lives, we don’t force people to accept medical treatment. Unless you’re going to treat everyone for illnesses, both physical and mental, the argument that they’re going to feel better with treatment just doesn’t hold water.

If a person just “doesn’t get the point of living”, they shouldn’t be forced to live out a meaningless life.

13

Here is an archived story about this case, so you can get more background information.

14

(Bolding mine) I agree that leaving people to die without proper medical attention is a “bad thing” (if they want treatment), the fact is, we do this every day all over the world without ever batting an eyelash. Face it…the “Haves” get better medical treatment than the “have nots”. They might as well kill themselves. Public aid will give you the bare minimal treatment, but when it comes to experimental or costly treatment, we, as a society, turn our backs on them regularly. We don’t lock them up for not getting well. In fact, we will make their exit as painless as possible with drugs (probably to alleviate our collective guilt) and let them go.

We let perfectly sane people choose to refuse treatment for a variety of reasons. We also let crazy people refuse medical treatment. From where I stand, the refusal to let people kill themselves is based in religion and has no place in American society; legally or otherwise.

15

The prospect of suicide saved my life.

I went through a prolonged, miserable, and crushingly dark period of time that was utterly impervious to all attempts at alleviation.

I tried long stints of therapy, sweeping changes to my relationships and to my work, several medications, etc. In short, I tried everything that’s supposed to work, but nothing did.

I then spent about a week (to quote Martin Hyde: “logically and calmly”) planning two alternative suicide scenarios, ones that would appear to be tragic, but believable, accidents. This wasn’t a cry for help or a “… and then they’ll be sorry” situation. I didn’t want my loved ones to blame themselves, and I while I wanted to spare them as much suffering as possible, I wasn’t an idiot: life was growing more intolerable every day, and I was running out of options.

After crossing that mental line where suicide changed from being something I was contemplating to something that was absolutely real, something I knew I could do, suicide unexpectedly became my one ace-in-the-hole, a trump card I could play if all else failed. As bizarre as it sounds, suicide gave me hope.

Things actually got worse after that, but I had my trump card. There were several times when its very existence allowed me to last just a few more days … and then just a few more days…

That was close to ten years ago. Now suicide isn’t even a blip on my radar; my life ain’t always a picnic, but it’s not even remotely the unmitigated torment it once was. In fact, I consider myself one of the luckiest guys on the planet.

I am by no means advocating suicide; it’s a tragedy, period. But is it bad? The prospect of suicide was the main thing that prevented my suicide, so I do not advocate the unilateral removal of that option (if such a unilateral removal were even possible).

16

other-wise, that was a very brave post.

It actually reminds me a little of the tragic final story of Alan Turing (and who would propose that he wasn’t logical?!). Some say he chose to lace an apple with cyanide specifically because his mother worried about the hazardous substances in his environment, thus allowing her the comfort of plausibly denying her son’s suicide.

Of course, the story now lives on the Apple Macintosh logo.

17

I think the Turing>Apple logo connection is actually a myth.

18

Thanks, Sentient. Coming from you, that means quite a lot to me.

19

I thought the myth was that the rainbow colours in the Apple logo signifying Turing’s homosexuality? (The rainbow flag was not adopted by the gay community until well after Apple was founded.) Still, I prepare to stand corrected.

20

What’s so bad that a person feels they need to end their life? Lose a job? Some girl/boy won’t go with you to prom? Kids at school don’t like you? Life has no “meaning”? Bored?

There are other jobs. There are other girls/boys and other dances. There are other people you can be friends with. You have a whole lifetime to find “meaning” if you want. Go find a hobby.

Some people commit suicide because they are severely depressed. There’s help for that. Others are just bored or despondent teenagers who seek melodrama. It just seems pathetic and cowardly to me that someone would choose suicide over fixing whats wrong in their lives.

I’m curious as to the demographics of most suicides. I thought I heard somewhere that it tends to be mostly white people of at least moderate income families. Maybe someone else knows for certain.