Just when you thought the depths of humanity had been plumbed you see things like this -
A VIRTUAL PATH TO SUICIDE
Depressed student killed herself with help from online discussion group
The story is sad enough but the attached pics in the article of this young girl are just simply heartbreaking. To think that there people in this world who are misguided or evil enough to think they were doing this little girl a favor by helping her to kill herself.
Small part of the article.
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There seems to be something logically paradoxical and wrong with a group that advocates suicide as an option. I am struck wondering why they haven’t offed themselves, although I am confident they would have a rationalization for that…
What’s the address of the suicide website?
<concerned>Why do you want to know?</concerned>
NOTE - IANA Moderator for the SDMB by any stretch, but I have to assume it would be against policy to share such a web address, regardless of the motive, on this board, due to potential legal ramifications…
I know what the group is. I’ve heard of them, and used to visit them in my suicidal days. They are an extreme bunch. You must understand their mindset. These people need help, not condemnation. They consider their lives so miserable, that they see no other option than to committ suicide. They aren’t murderers, they are just ill, and need help.
I’ll post the address if a mod will come in and say I can. I’m not sure if it’s against the rules or not.
I am probably not the first to do this, but I emailed the mods to check in with them. They are probably way ahead of me anyway.
Thanks for waiting, Man with the Golden Gun.
IMO these people are more misguided than evil. I used to think suicide was a perfectly valid choice for people to make, and I would have provided advice on how to do so, if asked. Not because I want people to die, but people I would have wanted people’s suffering to end.
I now realize that the suffering that the survivors will feel is likely to be as great or greater than the suffering one is trying to end. It’s simply not worth it.
Moderator’s note:
Please do NOT post the link to the site. Suicide is still illegal, quite beyond the devastation is wreaks.
TVeblen,
for the SDMB
Suicide is a perfectly valid choice for some people to make, such as this fellow I read about in today’s Times:
“Dr. Richard A. Gardner, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who developed a theory about parental alienation syndrome, which he said could lead children in high-conflict custody cases to falsely accuse a parent of abuse, died on May 25 at his home in Tenafly, N.J. He was 72. The cause was suicide, said Dr. Gardner’s son, Andrew, who said his father had been distraught over the advancing symptoms of reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a painful neurological syndrome.”
Certainly not for a 19-year-old girl suffering from depression, though, and that group should be, well . . . What? It is free speech, so I don’t think they can be shut down . . .
It’s not difficult to find.
No doubt Kalhoun - all the more reason to not post it here. I believe in free speech, but I want the SDMB to be around to be able to discuss it, not shut down due to some lawsuit.
By the way, I agree with Eve - suicide is a person’s choice and may be valid in some cases. But that is very different from what this article seems to be discussing - helping young, depressed people find a means to act out on their depression when other avenues would be much better for them and their loved ones.
Heh, I just have a morbid curiosity about these things, plus I have some friends who would troll the fuck out of it just for kicks.
seems like it’s not the type of site you should try and get your ‘kicks’ from.
Having just looked up and read through some of the site in question, I’m inclined to agree. A can understand a morbid curiosity about the thing (it’s why I looked), but trolling that particular site “just for kicks” seems inappropriate in the extreme.
To put it another way… those people may have a right to suicide, but I don’t feel the need to have a hand in facilitating it or giving them further reasons for it.
Is it? I always thought it had been decriminalised in Britan decades ago, but I never thought about it being illegal in other places. Anyone care to enlighten me?
slight hijack, but if suicide is illegal, what’s the sentence? if you succeed in killing yourself, the authorities obviously aren’t going to press charges, and the only thing that i’ve heard for those who fail is that they get counseling. are there any other situations/alternatives/weird sentences that have been handed down for trying to commit suicide?
I would think they can be charged as accessories, right?
And I thought the Pro-Anorexia sites were scary…
They could probably be sued. If they think their lives are miserable now, let them find out how little it improves upon receipt of a subpoena.
I’ve considered this sentiment in the past and have concluded that it is arrogant bullshit. If someone is in so much physical or emotional pain that she sincerely would rather die than continue on, it is selfish to the point of cruelty to suggest that your discomfort from losing her out weighs the torture that is driving her to kill herself. It’s hardly a motive for her to continue on, is it? Her mortal pain is so insignificant that it is overshadowed by your inconvenience.
I take it as a given that modern medicine can cure most depressions. But that doesn’t change the fact that someone is suffering from unbearable pain. It would be pretty selfish of me to claim that my suffering from the loss is sufficient reason for her to not end her pain in the only way she knew would work.
I’ve never heard of that web site, and I’m not going to venture a guess as to whether the people visiting are sincerely sick or simply twisted sociopaths. Nevertheless, it makes my blood boil when someone suggests that his situational sadness outweighs the crippling physical and/or emotional pain that pushes another to suicide.