Alright, I was reading this thread and I began to think about it. Should suicide be legal (that is, attempted suicide, as you can’t really arrest the dead).
Should people have the right to off themselves?
My apologies if this has been done before, a brief search revealed that it had not.
I feel that suicide should be an option for people suffering with no reasonable end in sight.
So if someone has terminal cancer, I think suicide should be an option for them. I also think if someone has clinical depression and does not respond well to medication that they should have suicide as an option. I don’t think it’s fair it force someone to live a life of suffering.
But I don’t think suicide should be an option for just anyone at any ol’ time. Like when someone breaks up with their spouse they might be so despondent at the time that they feel like suicide, but we know that’s just a temporary state and in a matter of time they will be able to move past it. I also think the minimum age should be something like 25 to make sure it’s not just teenage-angst. I would also think there should be some period of time before hand where the person is in counseling or treatment to ensure that there really is not a workable solution.
I know I would be sad if someone close to me committed suicide, but I also wouldn’t want them to live a miserable life just so that I wouldn’t feel that sadness. I would rather have their suffering be over.
I recently put my dog to sleep because cancer overtook her. At the end she was struggling so much that I can’t imagine that she wanted to keep going. Putting her to sleep was very hard, but I could take relief in knowing that her suffering was over. If my dog were a person, I would like to think that if she said she wanted it to be over, she would have that option and not have to wait for the cancer to finish her off.
Suicide has been legal in the UK for many years now.
I think it should be legal. People should have the right to choose whether they want to continue living… after all, it is their life and forcing them to stay alive when they don’t want is basically holding them prisoner in a world they don’t want to be in. As long as their suicide attempt doesn’t endanger anyone else, they should be able to exercise their own free will and do whatever they want with their own life.
I think not.
Cite?
Suicide was decriminalised in England by the Suicide Act of 1961.
(Google for details).
filmore:
The problem with your post on this subject is legalities…
We all know how something can (and often does) get changed in the courts.
As I’ve never dwelt on the matter, I’ve no opinion, whether for or against. I just thought I’d make a comment.
So suicide is not legal in the UK then, like I said.
You do know the difference between decriminalised and legal, right?
Suicide is definitely legal in Canada (although assisted suicide and euthanasia are illegal, as is counselling someone to commit suicide). I’m certainly of the opinion that suicide should be legal–my life is mine, not the states.
Well, no actually. Enlighten me.
Decriminalisation means that you have still committed an unlawful act but that there will be no criminal sanction against you. ie it’s taken out of the purview of criminal law. But it’s still illegal and administrative punishments can still (theoretically) be brought against you (fines etc).
Legalisation on the other hand means that an act which was formerly illegal is brought under the control of the law.
A more familiar usage of decriminalisation is the use and possession of small amounts of cannabis. In countries where cannabis has been decriminalised, it’s still illegal to possess cannabis but the police do not have the power to bring criminal charges against you (for small amounts).
This may all seem like a minor nitpick (and it is really, in practice) but it’s still an important one IMO.
Well, I can’t find the text of the Suicide Act of 1961 online, but references to it say things like
The United Kingdom abolished the crimes of suicide and attempted suicide in the suicide act of 1961.
at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide
and The Suicide Act (1961) made it legal for people to take their own lives.
at http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics/sanctity_life/euthprights.shtml
Furthermore wikipedia also states
By the early 1990s only two USA states still listed suicide as a crime.
so maybe suicide was not decriminalised, but was actually made legal.
sure, it should be made legal as long as people who are going to do it are fully aware they’re going to hell. (hey, this is Great Debates. and i don’t believe everyone who does it is going to hell; i just don’t want to take the risk… but that’s a whole other debate.)
Allowing suicide means allowing taxpayers to kill themselves. While the estate tax may potentially offset the government’s lifetime loss, odds are it won’t. Letting your tax-producing slaves kill themselves is bad public policy from a fiscal standpoint (the only one that matters). Sorry to be so cynical, I just don’t see any other way to see this issue. It’s nice to blab on and on about how “life is precious” and “suicide is never an option” but the bottom line is that’s all bullshit. Not all life is precious, and sometimes suicide is, in fact, the best option. As long as people are not immortal, suicide is, should be, and will be an option.