Yay.
Yea, more or less. But there are a couple of mitigating factors to consider:
-
Believe it or not, the fact that it is illegal serves as a deterrent to some people. No cite, but I’ve heard it many times and it makes sense to me. When I was most severely suicidal, the two biggest things that held me back were the knowledge that it would devastate my grandmother and the sense that it was morally wrong. Considered objectively, those may not make sense; but suicidal person isn’t thinking objectively, and for some of them the moral violation involved in breaking the law (dun-dun-duuuhh) may hold them back from a rash decision.
-
Social pressure can amount to coercion for vulnerable people. I’ve seen studies stongly suggesting that euthanasia laws in some European countries (Denmark?) have created situations where opting for suicide becomes expected of an elderly person. I think a libertarian society can recognize that some people’s decision-making can be compromised; and I also think it can be deeply concerned about maintaining a profound respect for the dignity and value of human life.
Yea.
If any person can volunteer to die for what they believe in when speaking of volunteering for, say, war, then I think it is fair to say that they can die for what they believe in, say, the worthlessness of their own life, subjectively speaking. Are we valuing relative autonomy, or life per se?
Yea.
I don’t think there is anything inherent to suicide that makes it irrational. Some suicides are irrational. Some are very rational.
I wouldn’t say that mental illness necessarily makes suicide irrational. If someone suffers for twenty years from crippling mental illness, it doesn’t mean that they are irrational if they choose to stop suffering. The illness can cause the suffering without destroying the person’s abilty to think.
For those of you who say yea, let me ask a follow-up question that takes it one step further. Okay, so let’s say the government shouldn’t make suicide illegal (although furt’s point about the deterrent effect of illegality is well-taken). As Kimstu notes, there is a large difference between saying ‘the government shouldn’t forbid x behavior’ and saying ‘people should engage in x behavior.’
So let me bring economic libertarianism into the discussion to some degree: assume that someone invents a device that allows someone to kill oneself instantaneously and painlessly. Further assume that this same device cannot be used against other people–i.e., for purposes of murder. Heck, for those of you who are Futurama fans, imagine the Suicide Booths that appear in the first episode. Now:
- Should the government step in and prohibit the manufacture, marketing, and sale of such a device?
Assuming your answer to that is no,
- Should such a device be manufactured, marketed, and sold? That is, is it okay for individuals to profit by making it easier for people who want to kill themselves to do so?
One way through that question would be to say, “Yes, people should be free to sell such devices. But there should, ideally, be institutional checks–whether put into place by the manufacturer or whoever–to make sure that people who buy these devices are doing so freely, and that they’re sure of the decision they’re making”…as Polycarp said, ‘after due consideration with clarity of mind.’
The problem here, obviously, is the standard of ‘free choice’ that we use, and how we determine ‘clarity of mind’ (something I alluded to when analogizing to some people’s tendencies toward drug addiction). It reminds me of Catch-22: Yossarian wants to be grounded from flying missions. Doc Daneeka says that you can only be grounded if you’re crazy. Yossarian says he’s crazy. Doc Daneeka replies that that’s impossible; anybody who wants to be grounded must be sane. How do we second-guess whether someone is competent freely to choose to take their own life if the very decision to kill oneself suggests a frame of mind that, insofar as it values death over life, is wildly different than what is normally considered ‘rational’?
So what are people’s thoughts on the suicide device?
(Oh, also: someone asked about the pointlessness of making suicide illegal, since they can only charge you with the crime once you’re dead. I’m pretty sure that attempted suicide is also generally illegal, and that you can be charged/committed for merely trying to harm yourself.)
This device would reduce the enormous distress currently suffered by people commiting suicide in a prolonged, messy or painful manner and, indeed, by the loved ones who discover their bodies or the emergency workers who have to clear up gruesome scenes such as those found on the London Underground. Those commiting suicide would know that they were about to very defintitely die (thus avoiding tragic ‘cries for help which went wrong’), and accompanying advice to phone an ambulance immediately prior to its use would avoid the emotional scarring caused by discovering a dead body (familiar or not).
Unfortunately, I cannot conceive of a device which could not be abused - one could even be tricked into using your notional booth. I guess some kind of multi-stage pill might be of use, with the government mandating that it be accompanied by all kinds of literature entreating that the buyer seek professional help.
But an oven could be abused. Anything could be abused if the abuser wants to trick someone into using it incorrectly, or wants to use it on someone violently.
Of course, I am merely reluctant to unleash some “instant death device” onto the market without some safeguards, since I consider that easy availability of such lethal tools itself “restricts liberty” in a wider sense.
Gadarene, regarding your parenthetical comment:
According to what I’ve read, suicide is not illegal in the United States, which makes me think that attempted suicide is also not illegal. The only type of suicide that is currently illegal in the US is assisted suicide, except for Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal. At one point, many places in the US had laws against suicide, but I believe none of them exist today.
theR: Thanks for the clarification; you may well be right. Of course, I could hop onto Lexis and settle the matter definitively, but, well…I’m lazy. 
Really?
Not illegal?
Tell Mr. Kevorkian that!! :eek: 
(1) No. Once we’ve decided that suicide should be legal, there’s no reason to outlaw the tools to commit suicide.
(2) Yes, that’s fine. I’m not concerned with whether or not the manufacturers make sure their customers are doing so “after due consideration with clarity of mind”. One could argue that many other products are purchased and used for irrational reasons, to the buyer’s detriment, but that’s the buyer’s problem, not the seller’s. I’d be OK with some restrictions on how they’re marketed–salesmen shouldn’t be pressuring people into committing suicide–but that’s it.
Maybe I’m being whooshed here, but theR explicitly mentioned assisted suicide, which is what Dr. Kevorkian got in trouble for.
One reason why the government doesn’t want you to kill yourself:
They’d lose a tax payer.
Don’t let them fool you when they say that humanity is sacred or some bs.
Since suicide can often be a very impulsive gesture for the mentally ill, I would be opposed to the manufacture of the machine – just as I am opposed to the mentally ill have easy access to guns.
Polycarp, I agree with your stipulations about clarity of mind unless the situation becomes unbearable for an extended period and there is no relief in sight. I have had the unbearable mental anguish ( a reaction to the wrong meds), but it was short-lived. I can’t imagine having to endure that for longer than two or three days max. However, being rendered unconscious took care of the problem until the meds were out of my system.
With depression, I fight the impulse but I also know to automatically tell someone or get myself into a “safe” situation where I can do myself no harm.
I have had physical pain that would have been intolerable had I not known that it was going to get better quickly. I am definitely in favor of choice and also assisted suicide if that becomes necessary.
I pretty much agree with Polycarp’s take. I think a person has the right to make that decision, but some effort should be made to treat suicidal ideation in the case of mental illness or some other impairment which might compel people into grievously self-injurious behavior which they might not attempt if they were in their “right mind.”
Clinical depression can be treated. Psychosis can be treated. This means I do think that some earnest attempt should be made to talk people down from bridges or to get them to take the guns out of their mouths just in case their actions are compelled by mental illness or some other impairment (like 12 hits of acid) that can be treated. I see this as no different than the state’s obligation to treat any other potentially fatal illness (yes, I think the State has an obligation to provide health care. Call me a commie. I don’t care :p).
If a person can be shown, after a psychiatric evealuation, not to be psychotic or clinically depressed (I know depression is a pretty broad category. I guess I’m saying that if treating the depression does not decrease the ideation, then it would be reasonable to determine that the ideation is not being caused by the depression- a huge subjective morass, I know. I would have a loose standard, erring on the side of individual autonomy rather than the state deciding what was good for him) if they still show a considered and lucid desire to end it all, then I think they have the right, and as Poly said, I think this would apply most appropriately to those with terminal illnesses and pain, but I imagine there could be other circumstances as well.
I would like to make it clear that I don’t think suicidal attempts should be treated as criminal acts under any circumstance, just as mental health crises.
Hi,
I’m a brand new member who ran across this neat blog just moments ago while searching Google for similar topics. FYI: Suicide was illegalized solely to let authorities intervene without fear of legal liability exposure for ‘Good Samaritan’ efforts.
Respectfully Submitted,
Welcome to the Straight Dope. What you posted seems to be nonsense. Suicide has been illegal most places because it was considered a mortal sin. Feel free to support it with some decent sites and you could change my mind though.
As a civil libertarian I am not OK with suicide, but I don’t think it is the government’s business either in much the same way as I think they need to mind their own business when it comes to women’s bodies and abortion. I am OK with caveats in the latter topic with taking the needs of the fully viable fetus into account.
So, you want to off yourself quietly in your own garage, I think that is sad and that society should offer you help to manage your depression, but if you are determined go ahead. One place I do think that government interference is warranted is with zombies. If people die, they should stay dead, and if they don’t I am all for the due processes of the law grinding them exceedingly fine if you get my drift.
Naita:
Despite popular naive belief, my post was no-‘nonsense’ at all. But for one possible small oversight by solely’ v. ‘main’ used to explain motivation for most anti-suicide legislation. Absent legal prohibition of an act, its prevention can attract extreme liability for 3rd parties who intervene. As other messages aptly note, successful suicide is beyond reach of any manmade law. Thus, common sense alone must reveal punishment isn’t possibly sole or primary goal of such laws! Instead, prevention is the ideal outcome to facilitate proactive steps to protect those in mental distress from instant death by irrational mindsets. This scenario typically includes urgent circumstances that precludes second chances, so the law allows wide leeway to halt self-murder.
While you made a valid point about religious views of suicide as a mortal sin that do have great influence, U.S. Const. provisions mandate separation of church and state - recall? Thus, legislators (theoretically) can’t be concerned over what they learned from preachers. Beside that, secular public policy by itself is more than ample incentive to forbid suicide. If society lets people kill themselves at will, what message does it send and where does it end? Just as courts held state interest legally valid to compel laws against human sacrifice during a religious rite, the same goes for random acts of private suicide.
Putting theological philosophy aside momentarily, it’s quite obvious that legalized suicide is very unwise. If nothing else, it would leave potential victims and rescuers helpless to divert needless tragedy that could deprive society of valuable human assets forever. What ‘decent sites’ are required to prove self-evident fact like that? In the interests of academic integrity and intellectual curiosity, here’s one for your perusal: Larremore, W. (1903). Suicide and the Law. Harv. L. Rev., 17, 331. Chicago. Accessed at http://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/hlr17§ion=41.
Respectfully Submitted,