Disapproving of something and thinking someone should have the freedom to do something we disapprove of are two different things. Primarily, this is a freedom from the government preventing someone else from committing suicide. That said, others are also free to try and dissuade another from committing suicide. They are particularly justified in this when feeling that preventing that person from committing suicide is in their self-interest (ie. they would be sad if that person commits suicide, they think this is a temporary mental lapse that would go away if treated, etc.)
The founding fathers did not create the US constitution or US laws ex nihilo, and your link goes to a page that says all law created by people not strongly affected by Christianity have seen suicide as a self-evident right. It’s possible it goes on to describe a counter argument, but that’s not accessible without a subscription.
And even if it does, it is evidence of what I said, suicide was “illegalized”, as you put it, due to Christian theology. That people have sought to find other reasons to keep it in modern days does not change that fact.
Furthermore I did not ask for a cite that legalizing suicide was unwise, I asked for one that showed it was made illegal to allow authorities to intervene, but I think you’ll find that most western nations have managed to have psychiatric systems with suicide prevention even after suicide was decriminalized. So it baffles me how you can find that a self-evident reason.
Exactly - I have Parkinson’s on one side of my family tree, and Alzheimer’s on the other. I statistically have a shot at being a braindead shaking lump of protoplasm being kept alive on society’s nickle, rendering me an overall drain on society that could be better put to use keeping someone alive who is useful to society. If I do get the double whammy, or even just the Alzheiemer’s I do fully intend to off myself, and my husband is good with my decision [we have had a number of long discussions about it.]
I am not mentally ill [or more ill than most people] and feel that there is nothing negative in planning ahead - I can have one final party to say good bye to everybody, disburse my worldly goods and do things in an orderly fashion … and I see no reason why anybody other than my husband, my doctor and myself should have any say in the matter.
I remember a case years ago:
Married for 40-50 years, they pretty much “wore” each other like clothing.
She was “permanent vegetative state”.
He did the kindest thing a loving spouse could do under those circumstances: he put a bullet through her brain.
Of course he was charged with “murder in the first degree”.
More recently, a 70+ yr old man got in bed with his comatose wife.
Everyone freaked.
I tend to believe that he was hoping to give her some bit of comfort and security by re-creating a scene they had played out a few thousand times during the preceding 50+ years.
The American way of dying is: sterile room, uncomfortable bed, do everything possible to keep the pump running, the Hell with what those who knew and loved the person that dying hulk once was feel or think.