Just out of curiosity...

[Deja Q]

Without resorting to religion, tell me why suicide is wrong or why people who try to justify it for certain reasons are wrong (e.g. ending the pain of someone in constant pain...).

No, I'm not going to do it. I'm just curious and want to engage in deep philosophical topics.

[Fenris]

1. I don't believe it is "wrong," but I will attempt to answer your question.

First off, a great number of people who view suicide as wrong either do so out of firsthand experience and/or religious aversion.

My general impression from talking to friends, aquaintances, and families of those who have chosen to take their own lives is that in their view, suicide not only uneccessarily ends a life, but also causes unwarranted grief upon those close to the deceased. Yes, in this person's mind, suicide alleviates all of his or her problems by ending his or her existence; but this fails to take into account the problems that suicide creates for those around he or she. Thus, suicide is a selfish act, because it solves a problem for one person at the cost of creating other problems for a lot of people.

This has been the guiding idea that has prevented me from taking my own life: there are too many people who would suffer too much as a result of my death. And I have considered this often, seeing as I have severe emotional problems. It was never because I thought suicide was wrong. It was because I thought it would hurt the people I cared about far too much.

[orangecoloredapple]

2. To Simplify

Most people who are considering or who commit suicide still believe in an afterlife. They believe that they will somehow be able to see the aftereffects.

Sorry, all you who think that way - there is nothing afterwards. You will never see any reaction. So -

how about taking your intensity and using it for a positive, life-affirming purpose?

think about it.

[xray s]

3. Because....

...I imagine many who commit suicide are driven to that point by others. Maybe a parent or relative that sexually abuses them, or cruel classmates that torment them due to a physical charecteristic or their sexual orientation.

In other words, the people who drive a person to suicide are really in a way their murderers. And murder is wrong. Isn't it better to try to save people who are contemplating suicide from their dispair, help them slay their demons and try to show them a better way to a full life?

As far as people who are in great pain or terminally ill, I do not see why they should not be allowed to leave this world with dignity on their own terms.

[SOteric]

4. xray, I very much hope that you'll do some reading and research

on this subject.

The opinion you've put forth is woefully lacking in the factual.

Most suicide is owing to clinical depression, biological imbalances, alcohol and mental illness. Very little at this time is because of issues surrounding terminal illness and pain, and remarkably less still had anything to do with the evil influences of other people in one's life.

People don't "drive" someone to suicide. It's an individual choice. And it's a choice that quite genuinely wrecks the lives of those left behind.

[short bus president]

6. Is suicide OK, then

for someone with no relatives and no friends, who won't leave any wreckage behind?

The only "legit" opposition I've seen thus far has been the harm it causes loved ones left behind.

:shrug:

[SOteric]

9. I'm not addressing the main question, SBP

I'm addressing the appauling ignorance of blaming suicide on anyone but the individual chosing suicide. Your post is inappropriately placed.

[short bus president]

10. I believe my question

was asked of someone who wrote, "it's a choice that quite genuinely wrecks the lives of those left behind."

Would you limit me to inquiry regarding the intent of your post? Isn't the content fair game, too?

:P

[SOteric]

15. I would recommend that you apply

your comments more appropriately to post number 12.

[xray s]

14. I will

Thank you for challenging my thoughts on the matter. Please let me know if you have any good links on the subject. Is it possible that environmental factors can trigger, or at least exasperate, the depression, alcoholism and mental illnesses that are the dirct causes of suicide?

In any case, I still believe suicide is tragic and we should try to help people overcome the addictions, chemical imbalances or depression. We shouldn't give up on anyone in this world.

Another point, can you really make a "choice" to commit suicide if you are suffering from severe mental illness?

[xray s]

16. and this is what I have found so far...

http://www.mercola.com/2002/jan/12/abuse_suicide.htm

JAMA December 26, 2001;286:3039-3096

Early Childhood Abuse Linked to Suicide Attempts

Adults who suffered abuse or other negative experiences during their childhood are more likely than their peers to attempt suicide decades later.

The researchers found that individuals with at least one type of harmful childhood experience were two to five times more likely to attempt suicide. For example, those who reported being emotionally abused as a child were five times more likely to report a suicide attempt, while those who reported having had parents who divorced or separated during childhood were nearly twice as likely to report a later suicide attempt.

People who experience several traumatic events may be 30 to 50 times as likely to attempt suicide at some point in their life -- either in childhood or adulthood -- as those with a more carefree past, the researchers estimate.

(snip)

For example, Dube said, only 1.1% of adults who reported no negative childhood experiences attempted suicide. In contrast, 35% of adults who reported seven or more negative childhood experiences had attempted suicide.

Early exposure to these negative events may disrupt the proper development of the neural pathways within the brain, affecting subsequent mental health.

I know this is only one study, but it seems to me environmental factors of abuse would drastically increase the probabilty of dispair in an individual that could then lead to suicide.

[SOteric]

18. The page you link to is an advert for this guys video series

designed to help people overcome great difficulties in their lives and accompanied with a high-fiber diet plan. His research is annecdotally gathered and not the best possible hallmark of good science, and is not supported by references included in the text of the material.

Try some of these. Dry reading perhaps, but not quite so suspect in their motives.

http://www.medceu.com/course-no-test.cfm?CID=308

http://depression.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mhsource.com%2Fexpert%2Fexp1121597b.html

http://poaki.250free.com/index.html

[xray s]

19. The research he was refering to wasn't his own

It was published in JAMA, but maybe he is misrepresenting it.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/286/24/3089

Thanks for the other links

[xray s]

20. Another thought comes to mind...

One of the most tragic suicide events in recent history was the Jim Jones mass suicide in Jonestown. Were those people all just mentally ill, or were they manipulated into the act of suicide? (I am not talking about those that were physically forced to drink the cyanide, but those that did so freely).

Was Jim Jones their murderer, or did they commit the act willingly?

It seems to me an incredible evil act was done, but maybe this type of link is rare.

Suicide rates on American Indian reservations are much higher than the general population. Is it the environment that causes this, or is it mostly physiological?

[SOteric]

22. I'm not certain

what your intent is in straying from the topic of individual suicide and it's responsibility to mass manipulation and mass suicide. Certainly there are many recent incidence of such mass suicides, - the folks who thought god was an alien coming for them on a comet come to mind.

A few years back the man who was my lover for more than half a decade suicided. It was devastating. I assure you I did not 'drive' that man to suicide though many woefully ignorant people have expressed the opinion that I or someone must have. His parents did not 'drive' him to suicide. The adored him and never abused him. His mother is, to this day, in deep grief.

He was bi-polar, and was being treated for his imbalances with medication. He was also a brilliant writer and accomplished poet. His writings required and much benefitted from the intensity of emotion that his affliction dealt him. For that reason he often chose not to take his medication.

It was a matter of time and circumstance. One can always say that it was the direct result of some argument he had with this or that person, but that's absurdity itself. Life is conflict and we can't go through our lives never arguing with a man because he's bi-polar and might choose to end his own life. Only so much time can be wasted in trying to lay blame in such an horrific circumstance.

In the time after his death I spent some time with a grief support group and read and studied much on the subject of suicide. Very few well-regarded theories support your assertion that suicide is as closely linked to abuse by or the evil influence of other as you suggest. Most all suggest that it is some combination of mental illness, alcohol, genetic pre-disposition (it seems to run in families as frankly does abuse and violence), clinical depression and even catastrophic life events.

Yes, there are some excellent links to be found online. I recommend a trip to your local library, and some determined discretion about your sources.

I'm gladdened that you seem ready to learn and debate on this issue, but I regret I will not help you any further. Dragging all this up again is painful in the extreme and I just don't have the heart to address these issues with you.

[ForrestGump]

8. Youth in Asia, fine, perhaps

But suicide as murder? Not even. Not when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty point. A hard life may contribute to depression or whatever forms the context for suicidal thoughts, but laying a murder rap on anyone in that person's life is more than a bit much.

Yes, it'd be great to prevent suicidal people from killing themselves, and it has certainly been done (at least with people who were perhaps not fully committed to their own destruction) but ultimately nobody can save another from themselves and to suggest otherwise - happy exceptions aside - is to place an unfair burden of implied guilt on the shoulders of their survivors.

[Aristus]

5. I don't believe it's wrong.

Except in that it devastates the loved ones left behind.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

7. I don't think it's wrong in matters of terminal illness

If I ever found out I had a terminal illness I might entertain it myself. In matters otherwise, I can only say that the communication it leaves others who tried to help the person with is "fuck you, you couldn't help me."

I am talking from personal experience as my friend's son did exactly that and I had to fly to Atlanta with her to identify his body..she couldn't deal with it.

[Dob Bole]

11. All life on Earth serves a purpose...

and presumably life elsewhere. Destroying life diminishes the whole. That is, of course, assuming that a sucide rate is not already factored into a natural system.

[SOteric]

12. I think it can be wrong on a number of levels

but that it isn't always or necessarily wrong.

I concern myself that in some cases of terminal illness and especially with the elderly, there is a difficult to define hair's breadth line, where the 'right to die' becomes the 'obligation to die.'

Especially in the case of the poor, the elderly, the loneliest who find themselves ill, it can quite easily become a matter of not wishing to burden their loved ones and relatives with their care. The very thought of any elderly person feeling obliged to end their life rather than fight to extend it - where that would otherwise have been the choice - is morally and ethically reprehensible.

We do not, as a society, honour the lives of our elders sufficiently as it is. I will not condone any legislation which encourages them to feel compelled to die to ease the financial and caregiving burden on their families.

So... then, many suggest that the laws inacted to allow euthanasia need to be tightly written. And I've thought about that. But at this time, I'm not seeing any recommendations for such legislation that comfort me in the belief that this is actually possible. Think long and hard about it, could you write such legislation? How would it read?

I guess ultimately I feel like I'm asked to make a choice between allowing some people to die with dignity while others feel a compunction to end their lives; or asking some to linger anesthetised and without their dignity to free others from the feeling of being 'obliged to die.'

---

In terms of those who simply chose to end their lives, I think it wrong not only because of the damage that is done in its wake, but because of the horrific and unalterable waste that is the death of some emotionally fragile people who are too deeply influenced by depression to make rational choices about their own futures.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

13. It depends on the situation...

Suicide can be devastating for surviving family members, especially children.

The prolonged agony of a terminal illness can be equally distressing for loved ones.

Treatment for depression seems like a more sensible solution than suicide.

[VOX]

17. If one is depressed, it's too permanent!

Not to minimize the condition, but depression can be treated effectively, with good and proper management.

It's also a lot of violence to bring down upon oneself. It's hard to make this point without vibrating up against the membrane of spirituality or religious belief, but that's not quite where I'm going here. Just a basic honoring of the world and its living things.

As for assisted suicide for the terminally ill and elderly, that's a hard call -- SOteric very eloquently articulates the dilemma in her post #12.

[hedgetrimmer]

21. death, whats wrong with it?

nothing... it is a goal... we all are born and in that birth is our death... by embracing death one can help make living more bearable... every moment counts, for every moment can be the last... if noticed in such fashion that moment can become the life experience making all moments the life experience....

further, suicide is an individuals choice... death like birth happens and if you so happen to have the option, choose what you will.