Should suicide be legal? Why or why not?

[Nioya]

A very serious topic in the modern world is suicide. Suicide can be a traumatic experience for friends and family of suicide victims. Grieving the death of a suicide can be much worse than grieving the death of say, an older family member. Particularly the suicide of a young person. However not all people have seen suicide has a bad thing. The philosopher David Hume wrote a treatise defending suicide.

http://www.davidhume.org/texts/suis.html

Suicide was also held to be acceptable to some of the ancient stoics.

What are your thoughts on suicide? Is it moral/immoral? should it be legal/illegal?

[Socialist Nordia]

I'm not sure "legal" is how I would put it. It definitely shouldn't be crime. Ideally, those who try to commit suicide, they should get as much help as they need mentally and emotionally that the government can give. If that doesn't work, I'm not sure how we should go about it. I guess I lean towards legalisation.

I do support legalisation of medically assisted suicide if you're dying from an illness and don't want to go through the suffering. That should be a choice.

[Arachaea]

It should be legal, because if someone's life comes to the point where they see no point in living anymore, they should be able to end their life.

[Socialist Nordia]

You should make a poll

[Ostroeuropa]

i'd lean towards it being illegal if not done under the properly regulated manner in a space designated for it, so as to allow law enforcement to intervene and prevent suicide so the person can undergo appropriate mental health checks and such, as well as involuntary institutionalization should that be deemed necessary to treat them.

However, suicide should be an option for those determined to do so who have made the decision while in possession of their reasoning abilities after they have undergone, say, a few months of therapy and supervision, if they still feel it the best choice.

[The Romulan Republic]

There doesn't seem much point to making it illegal. Punishing those who attempt to commit suicide isn't likely to help them, and if they succeed in killing themselves, they're obviously beyond the reach of human law.

I do think that assisted suicide should be prohibited, at least in most cases. I know that this is controversial, but as a rule, I'd prefer to err on the side of life. Its not a religious thing either, really. I don't think a deity, if he/she/it exists, is so cruel as to further condemn/punish the suicidal. It is, rather, a belief that life is innately valuable, that as far as we know, once its gone that's it and there's no going back, and that therefore it should be ended only under the most extreme of circumstances, if at all.

I do appreciate the "right to control ones' own body" argument, but would counter by pointing out that once one dies, one loses (as far as we know) any control over ones' fate. So to me, saying one has the right to choose to die is like saying one has the right to choose slavery- which one generally doesn't. Part of the rules around consent is that you retain the freedom to stop doing whatever it is you consented to at a future date if you change your mind. You can't choose to irrevocably forfeit your freedom of choice, if that makes sense.

I also think that some advocates of assisted suicide have gone beyond advocating for the right to die, by overcompensating and treating suicide as an innately superior way to die. For example, the use of the euphemism "dying with dignity" for suicide as always seemed to me to imply that those who choose to fight to survive as long as possible are somehow undignified. It stinks of the glorification of fatalism, that one has an obligation to submit when its "their time".

Maybe its just me, but I tend to find more dignity in defiance than in submission. Or maybe I'm just afraid of death/irrevocable change.

Still...

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night."-Dylan Thomas

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/do- ... good-night

Not intended, as far as I know, as a poem on assisted suicide, but I find it relevant, and a much better expression of my feelings than my own skill as a writer could express.

[Luminesa]

It should be illegal. Suicide destroys families, not just the poor person who feels they had to end their life. It will also undermine any and all efforts to improve mental health and psychological medicine. So no. Keep it illegal, and the country should spend more money on research and on helping people who are depressed and/or suicidal to recover and to live their lives.

[Merther]

A very serious topic in the modern world is suicide. Suicide can be a traumatic experience for friends and family of suicide victims. Grieving the death of a suicide can be much worse than grieving the death of say, an older family member. Particularly the suicide of a young person. However not all people have seen suicide has a bad thing. The philosopher David Hume wrote a treatise defending suicide.

http://www.davidhume.org/texts/suis.html

Suicide was also held to be acceptable to some of the ancient stoics.

What are your thoughts on suicide? Is it moral/immoral? should it be legal/illegal?

If suicide killed Hitler, so suicide should be legal.

No ?

[Viva la Adakias]

A very serious topic in the modern world is suicide. Suicide can be a traumatic experience for friends and family of suicide victims. Grieving the death of a suicide can be much worse than grieving the death of say, an older family member. Particularly the suicide of a young person. However not all people have seen suicide has a bad thing. The philosopher David Hume wrote a treatise defending suicide.

http://www.davidhume.org/texts/suis.html

Suicide was also held to be acceptable to some of the ancient stoics.

What are your thoughts on suicide? Is it moral/immoral? should it be legal/illegal?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EToJ4lRq0xk

" Grieving the death of a suicide can be much worse than grieving the death of say, an older family member. Particularly the suicide of a young person." First hand experience, indeed it is.

Personally I think it should be legal for those that can no longer live normal lives. It's a individuals choice what to do with their life.

[Waldriech]

Illegal, these people can be helped, they don't have to kill themselves.

[New Grestin]

It's kind of silly when you think about it.

I mean, it's not like you can charge a corpse with a crime if they succeed.

[Individual Concerns]

Should not even be a state issue, but I guess you have to let politicians pander and mine the issue for whatever capital they can get out of it.
Would not be civilized otherwise.

[Individual Thought Patterns]

I don't exactly understand how you can charge a corpse with a felony.

[Lady Scylla]

A very serious topic in the modern world is suicide. Suicide can be a traumatic experience for friends and family of suicide victims. Grieving the death of a suicide can be much worse than grieving the death of say, an older family member. Particularly the suicide of a young person. However not all people have seen suicide has a bad thing. The philosopher David Hume wrote a treatise defending suicide.

http://www.davidhume.org/texts/suis.html

Suicide was also held to be acceptable to some of the ancient stoics.

What are your thoughts on suicide? Is it moral/immoral? should it be legal/illegal?

It shouldn't be illegal, it's rather daft to have someone down enough to attempt suicide, only to be slapped with a fine thereafter. That doesn't do anything to alleviate the situation. However, I do think treatment should be made more easily available to help combat suicide, and euthanasia should only be legal if the individual has a terminal illness.

[Ifreann]

I don't exactly understand how you can charge a corpse with a felony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod

[Commonwealth of Hank the Cat]

Would it not be a waste of space to throw a corpse in jail? "You get 10 years for your audacious crime! Take em' away, baliff!"

The baliff goes over and tries to pick up the corpse. "Quit struggling, you! You're makin' yourself dig a deeper hole!"

[Xadufell]

A very serious topic in the modern world is suicide. Suicide can be a traumatic experience for friends and family of suicide victims. Grieving the death of a suicide can be much worse than grieving the death of say, an older family member. Particularly the suicide of a young person. However not all people have seen suicide has a bad thing. The philosopher David Hume wrote a treatise defending suicide.

http://www.davidhume.org/texts/suis.html

Suicide was also held to be acceptable to some of the ancient stoics.

What are your thoughts on suicide? Is it moral/immoral? should it be legal/illegal?

Why would anyone care if suicide is legal or not? It's not like they're going to get punished if they're dead. Unless you mean attempted suicide

[The Romulan Republic]

A very serious topic in the modern world is suicide. Suicide can be a traumatic experience for friends and family of suicide victims. Grieving the death of a suicide can be much worse than grieving the death of say, an older family member. Particularly the suicide of a young person. However not all people have seen suicide has a bad thing. The philosopher David Hume wrote a treatise defending suicide.

http://www.davidhume.org/texts/suis.html

Suicide was also held to be acceptable to some of the ancient stoics.

What are your thoughts on suicide? Is it moral/immoral? should it be legal/illegal?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EToJ4lRq0xk

" Grieving the death of a suicide can be much worse than grieving the death of say, an older family member. Particularly the suicide of a young person." First hand experience, indeed it is.

Personally I think it should be legal for those that can no longer live normal lives. It's a individuals choice what to do with their life.

How does one define a "normal" life?

I'm also concerned about the implication that those who do not live "normal" lives have lives that are somehow not worth living.

I mean, maybe some people living in great agony would feel that way, and have reason to feel that way, but you need to be really careful about how you define that.

[Individual Thought Patterns]

I don't exactly understand how you can charge a corpse with a felony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod

Not everyone's a Pope.

[Threlizdun]

The right to die is an essential component of bodily autonomy. Those who do not want to go on living ought to have the choice not to. That said, suicide should only be available in a safe setting with the assistance of a medical professional. People definitely shouldn't be punished for attempting to commit suicide on their own, but they should be stopped to prevent others from potentially being harmed and to ensure the individual has time to truly think about the decision rather than acting impulsively.

It should be illegal. Suicide destroys families, not just the poor person who feels they had to end their life. It will also undermine any and all efforts to improve mental health and psychological medicine. So no. Keep it illegal, and the country should spend more money on research and on helping people who are depressed and/or suicidal to recover and to live their lives.

Families do not have the right to condemn others to a life of suffering if they don't want to live it.

[PaNTuXIa]

Yes. Especially if the patient is terminally ill with an extremely painful disease like brain tumors or other types of cancer.

[Gauthier]

Limit it to terminal illness. Otherwise it's just asking people to pull shit straight out of detective novels.

[Isyrannaea]

forced suicide should be legal

[Southerly Gentleman]

i'd lean towards it being illegal if not done under the properly regulated manner in a space designated for it, so as to allow law enforcement to intervene and prevent suicide so the person can undergo appropriate mental health checks and such, as well as involuntary institutionalization should that be deemed necessary to treat them.

However, suicide should be an option for those determined to do so who have made the decision while in possession of their reasoning abilities after they have undergone, say, a few months of therapy and supervision, if they still feel it the best choice.

This is the most reasonable approach. As for physician-assisted suicide, I think it should be allowed for terminal cases if the physician judges the patient in question to be in full possession of their mental faculties.

[Gauthier]

forced suicide should be legal

> Said unironically