Is Suicide a Fundamental Human Right?

[pocebokli]

is suicide the individuals most basic and fundamental right?

is it incosiderate for individual to kill himself and deprive his family and society of himself, since it is in most cases the circumstances and inconsideration of the society that is the cause of this?

 

[Erus]

I've been told, I always have the right to die.. I don't know if there's a specific age where that right comes in or not. I think it is inconsiderate for an individual not only to family and society but to themselves to end theirself before allowing the given society or living circumstances to be adjusted that fit themselves where living on with it could work..

Everything is an Adventure
Most of life is taking leaps off an edge hoping to catch the other side
There are different size leaps
Some you know you can do, you try
Always a possibility of slipping and falling
Some you're not sure if you can do
You try anyway, with bigger chances that you'll fall
How will you know what it's like on the other side of the leap if you don't try?

 

[Prometheus]

is suicide the individuals most basic and fundamental right?

Your use of the word right implies that this is a political question. Suicide is clearly an option. Do you mean to discuss the government granted right to sucide? What do you mean?

is it incosiderate for individual to kill himself

How can you ask this? There cannot be a single answer that fits all situations. This question makes me think that you are asking this in a political manner, as to whether or not there should be punishment for the attempt.

In other words, I really do not understand what your post is driving at.

 

[wuliheron]

In some countries euthenasia is a legal right. But whatever the case might be, if someone really wants to commit suicide there is little that can be done to prevent them.

That being the case, I have to echo other people and ask what exactly do you mean?

 

[Preator Fenix]

In a community, you are needed, weather you like it or not.

Your expericances, for better or worse, are needed for the evolution of humanity.

If we as a group allow auto destruction, we are not helping ourselfs at all.

Sucide is not a right, as to invoke that right would curtail the rights of others as it is a fundamental right of a human being to not be alone.

 

[Prometheus]

Your expericances, for better or worse, are needed for the evolution of humanity.

You don't seem to understand what evolution is all about.

Sucide is not a right, as to invoke that right would curtail the rights of others as it is a fundamental right of a human being to not be alone.

You clearly do not understand what a right is. Care to define the word right as you used it these 4 times in this sentence?

 

[dekoi]

Sucide is not a right, as to invoke that right would curtail the rights of others as it is a fundamental right of a human being to not be alone.

A counter-argument to this would likely state the vague nature of your statement. An argument of this light magnitude would likely be ignored in e.g. the court of law (imo).

 

[Philocrat]

is suicide the individuals most basic and fundamental right?

is it incosiderate for individual to kill himself and deprive his family and society of himself, since it is in most cases the circumstances and inconsideration of the society that is the cause of this?

-----------------------------------
Suicide is the GREATEST RISK for the human race to take. A society that permits (or whose ACTIONS lead to) Suicides takes the GREATEST RISK of all!
-----------------------------------

 

[dekoi]

Philocrat, will you please stop bolding and colouring all the fonts you use in every post? If your post has any true significance, it does not need any more contrast.

 

[Preator Fenix]

A modern court system would ignore my argument dekoi, as I am not speaking in a strictly legal sense.

When I speak of the social implications of suicide I am thinking in very small populations in a more primitive age of human existence, and more specificly, in a state of anomity.

In a modern state, were no one knows each other, the suicide of person means less and less as the population grows.

From this I arrive at the axiom that suicide is wrong and should be unlawfull to the degree your actions may or may not affect the rest of the population

 

[Prometheus]

-----------------------------------
Suicide is the GREATEST RISK for the human race to take. A society that permits (or whose ACTIONS lead to) Suicides takes the GREATEST RISK of all!
-----------------------------------

You are making quite an emphatic statement. However, I have no idea what you are talking about, or what you mean by risk. Do you?

 

[Prometheus]

From this I arrive at the axiom that suicide is wrong and should be unlawfull to the degree your actions may or may not affect the rest of the population

How selfish of you.

 

[Tom McCurdy]

You can't generalize life...

 

[Preator Fenix]

I am sorry Prometheus, but human existence is fundamentally selfish. We base all our morality basicly on the "I'll scratch your back, if you scratch MY back" mentality. It is the system of mutual and benefical parasites.

If your death has little or negiable effects population, then remeber to cut your arm laterally from the wrist to the start of your elbow deeply to allow for maximal blood dispersal.

If your death brings about negative consequences for the community at large, then suck it up and hold out to the tragic bitter end.

 

[Prometheus]

human existence is fundamentally selfish.

I will not disagree with this.

If your death has little or negiable effects population, then remeber to cut your arm laterally from the wrist to the start of your elbow deeply to allow for maximal blood dispersal.

If your death brings about negative consequences for the community at large, then suck it up and hold out to the tragic bitter end.

I suspect that you are trying to be funny. I hope that you are trying to be funny. Other than your sense of humor, I really have no idea what the point of your post is. Do you have a point? If so, please make it in a manner that is more clear.

Society puts certain individuals to death, in this country, all the time. Whether or not you or I think that the death penalty is justified or deserves our support, the fact is that it is legal. Therefore, I think that your desire to see suicide be made illegal is selfish of you, as this society has determined that not all deaths have a negative effect on society.

 

[Preator Fenix]

Again I repeat I speak not from a personal point of view.

Personally I see no problem if you who I do not know in some far away country takes upon himself to end his life. It does not AFFECT me. I would though oppose with ALL my will if say my brother wants to kill himself,... it is selfish of me I know, but I cannot bear to lose my brother. His death WILL affect me.

From a societal POV, which sees individual humans lives as cogs and componets in a big machine, the same attitude would be dangerous. As far as the social "machine" goes, who does not have the benefit of NOT KNOWING each person,... each person serves a function and purpose and it would behove the "machine" to not lose any of it's "parts" needlessly. This is ever more true the SMALLER the population, therefore the more critcally important the interconnections between individuals is the MORE important it is not NOT allow individuals to autodestruct. Only in extreme population thresholds and population overconcentrations could autodestruction BEGIN to be a viable option.

Therefore AS A GENERAL RULE OF THUMB nature instils the concept that sucicde is NOT a good thing. It is little wonder that most primitive religous systems captured this usefull axiom, and enacted laws and ordinaces that eliminated or at least reduced suicide to extreme highly specific situations.

Does this in effect violate and trampel on your personal and intimate human rights. Absolutely does. But as far as the community at large is concerned, TO DAMM BAD.

If you think I am "selfish" and "unfair" in my views of suicide, you wouldn't even want to hear of my opion of the whole silly concept of "human rights".

 

[PerennialII]

If your death brings about negative consequences for the community at large, then suck it up and hold out to the tragic bitter end.

Would not this invalidate the overall argument (why not allow individual do what he pleases), if an individual comes to the conclusion that its time to give up ... what possible use could a greater community have for him? And as such make the responsibility of a person towards the community negligible, in turn arising the question what sort of responsibility should a society have towards a suicidal person (not speaking in legal etc. terms)?

 

[Preator Fenix]

Well I for the survial of a small community a damm has to be built to regulate a raging river during the raing season all the extra arms and legs will be needed.

It has the responsibility to stop him to whatever pratical extent possible from killing himself. Not more effort should be put in then would be lost in the person ending his life could afford the rest of the community..

 

[Prometheus]

AS A GENERAL RULE OF THUMB nature instils the concept that sucicde is NOT a good thing.

You are correct that this is a general rule. There are numerous exceptions.

I would though oppose with ALL my will if say my brother wants to kill himself,... it is selfish of me I know, but I cannot bear to lose my brother. His death WILL affect me.

I do not disagree with what you have said here. What I disagree with is that once your brother has been saved from attempted suicide, you would have him sent to prison for even attempting to negatively affect your admittedly selfish self.

 

[Preator Fenix]

Prison? No that would not be a efficant thing to do.

Mentally healthy people don't commite suicide (under normal conditions )
They therefore should be sent to a mental institute.

 

[Prometheus]

Prison? No that would not be a efficant thing to do.

People who break the law go to prison, do they not?

From this I arrive at the axiom that suicide is wrong and should be unlawfull

You advocate a law, such that violators can be required against their will to become under control of the State.

I agree that people who attempt suicide should and most often can be helped to overcome the temporary cause of their dispair, I am against any kind of law and any bahavior forced upon them by well-meaning deniers of liberty such as yourself.

 

[Preator Fenix]

So you do not agree that society has a responsiblilty to help those with mental disorders??

Suicideal people should be place under state control until a time that they no longer pose a threat to themself or the community.

Remeber sucidedal people just don't kill themselfs... sometimes they decide to take others them with them.

 

[Prometheus]

So you do not agree that society has a responsiblilty to help those with mental disorders??

I completely disagree with you, in spite of your misrepresentation of my views.

I think that it is a good idea for society to help those with mental disorders. However, unlike you, I would not propone making their actions illegal and taking them into state custody as you suggest.

 

[Philocrat]

Philocrat, will you please stop bolding and colouring all the fonts you use in every post? If your post has any true significance, it does not need any more contrast.

Sorry about the bolding, I keep on explaining to people why I do it. Anyway, I have just been warned of that by the almighty PF directorate. I will try and tone things down...but I have also encouraged them to either kick me out of the PF or explain what these bolding and sizing tools are for.

Now to answer your question. What I meant was that any society that has the desire and will to think and act progressively cannot afford to take any risk at all, even including such things as commiting suicide as no one knows who amongst us may hold the ultemate antidote or solution to the human miseries or survival problems. Good sense or logic suggests that anyone of us on this planet potentially could hold the key to the human survival. This is purely a Universalist Principle which is contrary to the Utilitarian Principle. Universalism rules out suicide, not necessarily on moral grounds but also most importantly on survival grounds. From my own observation, utilitrianism never rules out survival completely, but only calculatively so. And you may very well think and act utilitarian, everyone is entitle to their own positions. However, from a Universalist position, which is purely survival in scope in this very case, even destroying a brain in the vat, if it stands in relations to the humans, is universally classed as a fundamental risk!

 

[Philocrat]

You are making quite an emphatic statement. However, I have no idea what you are talking about, or what you mean by risk. Do you?

See my response to dekoi above!

 

[False Prophet]

Since when is anyone obligated to benefit society? Is anyone required to work at white castle for $6.00 hr. USD? Is someone required to waste space in a studio apartment drinking all day? Is someone required to use welfare, self-help groups or whatever just to get back on track? Perhaps there are societies elsewhere that may benefit from my existence! Maybe I want to be reincarnated now, and do better in my next life! Maybe I want to get crackin' helping out the heaven population, and I can't wait to be hittin' on the sexy angels.* Maybe I really do believe I'm wasting recources, and there is a population crisis no matter how many people don't acknowledge it.

If someone comes to the bowling alley, but they decide that they don't like bowling so they want to visit the arcade, are you going to chain them up and force them to bowl for the rest of their life whether they like it or not? What concept of freedom would you have to have?

Also I'm not an antidote. I'm a regular home-sapien representative.

If I start data entry work after high school for $10.00 hour, but I'm smart enough be a doctor, am I ethically obligated to go to Medical school? If people owe themselves to society then why do we let them drop out of high school?

Life is worth living, even despite horrible circumstances, I've had my unfair share myself, but other people may have different values. Who is anyone else to regulate them? Why can you go hunting for sport, or have your dog/cat(s) put to sleep, but you can't pull your own plug, and you must be a slave to life support and mental detioration for the last miserable week of your life.

*I believe that you should give everything to this existence, and where you're going will still be there after your short life here. All of my examples to illustrate that different people have different values.

**If you're considering suicide, don't do it.

**My Views on the ethics of suicide to not apply to suicide bombers. Ya'll can kiss my United States of American A55. There won't be lots of sexy virgins where you're going, but there will be plenty of really bored gay rapist Ron Jeremy clones.

 

[Philocrat]

correction...Posting #24 my response to dekoi

From my own observation, utilitrianism never rules out survival completely, but only calculatively so.

This was meant to read:

From my own observation, utilitrianism never rules out suicide completely, but only calculatively so.

 

[pocebokli]

ok..why do you always complicate so?:-)...what i meant was...

many MANY MANY people are literally thrown into, well let's just say *absolutely* unenviable situations.
we all strive for the good things in our life. we have bad days and we have good days. but we all have a goal. for someone, family is worth living and suffering for even, for others love, for others their ambitions for others etc etc etc i hope you get my point. (see maslow's pyramid of needs or something).

what about those who either feel they have lost everything or they really never had anything, because of the society as we have it now. it is psychollogically determined that there is something like a safety switch in human brain that prevents suicide...let's call it survival instinct, more clear now?

well that safety switch as any other safety switch can collapse under certain amount of pressure. in our case pressure is psychical (although it could be physical, too). that psychic pressure is loaded on top of it by our be-loved so-ciety. by it's expectations, it's normatives, it's morals etc. that kind of pressure hurts people that cannot cope with it really bad in my opinion.

so...isn't it actually sadistic to preven such a person from commiting suicide? is that why we have mental clynics, to say "we're sorry, now that we've burned your circuits completely and you can only say blah blah we'll take care of you (or feed you electroshocks)."

what about the collapsed souls and tortured bodies that are inevitable byproduct of our "progress"? do we even know wether the progress is worth it? can we perhaps forbid utter nihilism or degeneration? do my rights for suicide end where another person's rights for my life energy begin? would the society's opinion change if it happened that something extraterrestrial cause such unbearable suffering on ENTIRE society?

 

[pocebokli]

is Esmeralda going to stay with Fernando?

ups wrong thread.

 

[3mpathy]

Personally I see no problem if you who I do not know in some far away country takes upon himself to end his life. It does not AFFECT me. I would though oppose with ALL my will if say my brother wants to kill himself,... it is selfish of me I know, but I cannot bear to lose my brother. His death WILL affect me.

From a societal POV, which sees individual humans lives as cogs and componets in a big machine, the same attitude would be dangerous. As far as the social "machine" goes, who does not have the benefit of NOT KNOWING each person,... each person serves a function and purpose and it would behove the "machine" to not lose any of it's "parts" needlessly. This is ever more true the SMALLER the population, therefore the more critcally important the interconnections between individuals is the MORE important it is not NOT allow individuals to autodestruct. Only in extreme population thresholds and population overconcentrations could autodestruction BEGIN to be a viable option.

Prison? No that would not be a efficant thing to do.

Mentally healthy people don't commite suicide (under normal conditions )
They therefore should be sent to a mental institute.

using these 2 peices of information together one could argue that:


1) after attempting suicide your brother is a bad cog in the machine. bad cogs need to be removed/replaced to make the machine run properly. anyone that is a bad cog/threat to the machine needs to be removed.

2) you say that everyone one is needed to be a part of history/ the making of history for that group. then you go on to say that you are still needed even if it is good/bad. So you are saying that everyone has a important piece to play, "A line in the grand play" so to speak and you accept that it can be +/-. Then why can it not be suicide? maybe that IS the card they were meant to play( if you believe in fate). But you don't even need to believe in fate to interpret that from your statements.

3) if you believe that everything plays are part or has a purpose and everyone can be collectively thought as as a machine, then why does one suicide count more that another? your brother or elvis presly should still have the same affect as a missing cog in the machine. it would ripple down and eventually affect you. yet you say o well for anyone that isn't close to you...?


the only thing that i agree with you with is that suicide is bad for a small community of ppl.

 

[abitofnothingleft]

why is it selfish? true, it will cause harm to individuals close to the person who are still living, but is it not selfish of them to keep that person living? is it not selfish of them to keep that person in their tortured state for the sake of the hope that it's all "going to get better?" in thinking about how YOU are going to be affected after the persons death are you not being selfish too? if that person wants to die so much let them die. why keep them in that torture any longer? because YOU want them there...? is that not selfish on your part as well?

 

[honestrosewater]

Preator Fenix,
(I just have to ask)
Do you really believe your argument or do you just enjoy making it?

 

[the number 42]

In certain terminal/painful medical circumstances I would agree that taking one's own life is too much of a mercy to call suicide. However, in general it causes too much pain to the relatives left behind to justify.

I knew a Dutch person once who said that the Dutch word for suicide meant literally 'self-murder'. This makes sense if you think of your life as something that you have no more right to dispose of than anybody else's.

 

[the number 42]

Come to think of it 'suicide' means 'self-murder' from the Latin (?) sui=self and cide=murder.

 

[the number 42]

Hi,

All of you who say that one does not have the right to commit suicide are a bunch of fascists, clothed in a veil of self-righteousness.

Any individual or society or religion or god that would prohibit suicide are just a bunch of sadists.

Try living the life of someone who wants to die everyday. Then, maybe you will understand.

juju

Heil.

If someone wants to die every day, they ought to getting every type of help that is available. Suicide is a last resort, not a first resort. Only if all has failed might suicide be reasonable. If suicide is self-murder, and murder is permissible in extreme cases of self-defence, only defending oneself against something worse that life might be acceptable e.g. excruciatingly painful terminal illness.

The other thing is, unless the person is an orphan with no friends or ties to the world, they are not just harming themselves but creating a world of emotional pain for those they leave behind.

Well, I'd better get back to flogging the servants - what fun!

Lots of love,

the number 42

 

[Sharat]

think you approach the issue from a far to simplistic point of view, speaking as someone who has deliberated over his own death ( and i do not wish this to be a sob story for I am no longer in that realm) but speaking as a man who seriously deliberated over the issue and came to the conclusion that though it was the simple solution it was morally unacceptable, let me recount why

I went through deliberations for a week, with myself, I had no intention of either informing anyone of my thought, nor discussing it with anyone and though obviously fear did play a factor

Ultimately it boiled down to me sitting down and watching a program on North Korea, a BBC documentary, where they interviewed a man who ran a prison a gulag ( can you imagine a gulag in North Korea)

In that documentary i came to learn that in North Korea if you commit a crime or you are perceived to commit a crime whether in fact you may have been innocent is irrelevant, you go to these gulags, not content to punish the individual, the next generation of your family also receives a prison sentence and so to does the third generation

So the reality is, you can be born into a prison there by virtue of having a grandfather who may have been innocent yet you would still have to do a lifetime of hard cold labour

In the gulag they have the five member rule meaning that if you commit an offense the 5 families (these are family affairs in North Korea) surrounding your immediate proximity are also punished. Collective culpability is what it is referred to over there

When I though that things in my life were difficult to the point that I wished to take my life, i think of these people, people who never had a chance to start with in the first place and though some may succumb and opt out the majority persevere, whether it is due to lack of opportunity or not is irrelevant to me

I decided taking the easy the way out was just that, far to easy, things have a tendency to be bad and get worse, but no matter how bad it gets there is always worse

To take the easy way out and commit suicide in that context is not acceptable, perhaps excusable for euthanasia i would not argue that point, but for people who can walk and talk and are free

It is disrespectful, and should you wish to die in a disrespectful manner negating anything you meant as a human being, your life meaningless

then i would argue be my guest. you mean nothing

 

[juju]

Sharat,

Just because one is worse off than another, this does not make it any better for the second. To think anything else is rather ghoulish.

It's like feeling better because someone is worse off than you. How UN-human.

If you think that some people in the world are really worse off than you (and they are), why don't you try to do something about it. Like toppling the North Korean government for instance.

As for the meaning of life. It has none. It is just a stage in the evolution/becoming of your being. It has no intrinsic value or meaning. It only has value or meaning in terms of what you learn from it and how it furthers your evolution/becoming. If you get nothing from it and it retards your evolution/becoming, it is useless.

juju

 

[Sharat]

That is a little naive don’t you think, and that’s not what I suggest at all, its not about feeling better because someone else is worse off, its knowing that there are people out there and you need to continue. Nor was that the context at which I looked at the decision from. please read the post, I treat euthanasia separately.,

What you suggest is this, difficulty gives license to individuals to commit suicide, that’s what you suggest, they should not consider the disrespect that brings on individuals that do actually have it harder perhaps a million fold

If I cannot continue under these rather simplistic set of circumstance for example how does one born into prison continue

If you cannot ask that fundamental question then there is something wrong there, don't you think, it suggests to me that the individual, more than anything is opting for the easy solution the quick fix

Suppose we set up schools and allowed everyone to drop out as soon as they found it difficult

Human achievement and the meaning of life is all about striving through the things we find difficult. Nobody ever said life was meant to be easy. If you commit suicide it says two things

(1) your life has been defined by one action for that is how everyone will remember the individual, through his suicide

(2) your life didn’t mean enough to them to have one in the first place and you squandered it on an act and how sad is that, there are people that struggle to live on in the face of tremendous adversity and someone who commits suicide that has access to the internet for example just let go of something so valuable because they couldn’t handle life

and that makes me sad and what a waste and where is the meaning other than shame, my cousin committed suicide, I know his reasons and I know why, and every time I remember him I think what a waste.

Is that how you would be remembered even when it gets so difficult as you want to escape

Not me, I didn’t buy it and I’m still alive, and you know what, I got through that stage and it was the best decision I ever made

 

[russ_watters]

If suicide is self-murder, and murder is permissible in extreme cases of self-defence...

Actually, murder is by definition unlawful - so that answers the question pretty directly: suicide is illegal by definition. That's why its called suicide. In fact, in the dictionary, it says both that its illegal and that its a symptom of mental illness.

juju, if you can't argue without slinging insults, you should be arguing.

 

[the number 42]

Actually, murder is by definition unlawful - so that answers the question pretty directly: suicide is illegal by definition.

'He lived by the dictionary, and died by the dictionary' has a certain ring to it, I suppose. But it makes more sense to just call suicide 'self-killing', and sometimes killing is lawful and sometimes it aint. Heavens to Betsy, sometimes war's legal.

juju, if you can't argue without slinging insults, you should be arguing.

Good point, Russ: 'If you can't argue, you should argue' is without a doubt one of your stronger arguments. (Sorry, couldn't resist ).

 

[BoulderHead]

In matters of legality the best dictionary would be a law dictionary. Here it is according to Black’s;

Suicide.
Self-destruction; the deliberate termination of one’s existence.

Attempted suicide is a crime in some jurisdictions, not in others. Some jurisdictions hold an attempted suicide which kills an innocent bystander or would-be rescuer to be murder, others manslaughter, others no crime. Some jurisdictions hold it to be murder for one person to persuade or aid another to commit suicide; some (by statute) make it manslaughter or a separate crime.

Unlike what russ_watters has said, the above legal definition does not label suicide as being illegal. Attempted suicide, on the other hand, is a crime only in some jurisdictions.

 

[the number 42]

Amazing: attempting the crime can be illegal, but actually committing the crime isn't. On the other hand what would the punishment for the crime of murder be? Capital punishment in really bad cases, perhaps?

 

[BoulderHead]

Haha, yes it is amazing that in some jurisdictions attemting suicide should be a crime.
It has the smell of a stockyard to me.

 

[abitofnothingleft]

Amazing: attempting the crime can be illegal, but actually committing the crime isn't. On the other hand what would the punishment for the crime of murder be? Capital punishment in really bad cases, perhaps?

its not that amazing...i mean its not illegal to commit suicide because there really isn't a punishment for it. you're dead. they can't punish you for it.

 

[russ_watters]

Unlike what russ_watters has said, the above legal definition does not label suicide as being illegal. Attempted suicide, on the other hand, is a crime only in some jurisdictions.

Obviously, you can't be punished for a successful suicide. But it is still generally illegal (or, if not illegal, just written into contracts as a deal-breaker) and has implications such as voiding life insurance policies.

 

[BoulderHead]

Obviously, you can't be punished for a successful suicide.

Too obvious to mention, I would say.

But it is still generally illegal

No, it definitely appears not to be illegal. Would you please provide the reader with your source for such information?

Besides the Law dictionary, here is something interesting from another source;

In the U.S. suicide has never been treated as a crime nor punished by property forfeiture or ignominious burial. (Some states listed it on the books as a felony but imposed no penalty.) Curiously, as of 1963, six states still considered attempted suicide a crime--North and South Dakota, Washington, New Jersey, Nevada, and Oklahoma. Of course they didn't take matters as seriously as the Roman emperor Hadrian, who in 117 AD declared attempted suicide by soldiers a form of desertion and made it--no joke this time--a capital offense.
Taken from; http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040326.html

(or, if not illegal, just written into contracts as a deal-breaker) and has implications such as voiding life insurance policies.

This is irrelevant, as will be stats on assisted suicide. Please provide support for your claim or kindly withdraw same.

 

[the number 42]

Actually, murder is by definition unlawful - so that answers the question pretty directly: suicide is illegal by definition

Russ baby, kindly rise to the bait when I dangle it so generously under your nose:

...sometimes killing is lawful and sometimes it aint. Heavens to Betsy, sometimes war's legal

There. Now you've made me say 'Heavens to Betsy' twice. What are you trying to do to me?

 

[russ_watters]

Russ baby, kindly rise to the bait when I dangle it so generously under your nose: [re: "...sometimes killing is lawful and sometimes it aint."]

Well, you're not being consistent: you said the definition of suicide is self-murder, not self-killing. Killing isn't always wrong/illegal, murder is wrong/illegal by definition.

 

[Kerrie]

Obviously, you can't be punished for a successful suicide. But it is still generally illegal (or, if not illegal, just written into contracts as a deal-breaker) and has implications such as voiding life insurance policies.

how come those who attempt suicide and fail then are not prosecuted for attempted murder? your claim of it being illegal is more of your opinion of what it should be rather then what is practiced as law...

 

[russ_watters]

how come those who attempt suicide and fail then are not prosecuted for attempted murder? your claim of it being illegal is more of your opinion of what it should be rather then what is practiced as law...

Murder and suicide are two different things, so why would you prosecute someone for attempted murder if they attempted suicide? That's like prosecuting someone for auto-theft when they stole money from a house. Both are stealing, but two different kinds.

Besides, Boulderhead provided evidence (well, he asserted it, but I'm inclined to believe him) that attempted/successful suicide is illegal (ie, written in law) in many places - it just isn't prosecuted. Some quick research shows that the laws/punishments against it have waned in recent history and were much more severe in the past.

My argument is based mostly on the definition. It is illegal by definition. From the dictionary.com:

1. The act of taking one's own life voluntary and intentionally; self-murder; specifically (Law), the felonious killing of one's self...[emphasis added]

To be fair, though, most of the definitions don't make the distincition between "killing" and "murder."

The reason, I think, attempted suicide isn't prosecuted is that it is recognized as a sign of illness and its best to treat it rather than punish it.

One caveat here (for all): please don't mistake a philosophical argument for a practical one. The fact that suicide is unlawful by definition has nothing to do with whether or not it is actually prosecuted - that's a practical matter. Either way though, there are legal implications for it.