Should people have the right to end their own lives?

[ZenAlex]

Or should we force them to live regardless?

I personally think it should be your right to end your life, so long as you're not doing it in a way that puts others in danger, like doing it in public.

Preferably there'd be a place you could go to to do it, and you'd see a professional who could try and talk you out of it by showing you your other options, but if you still want to do it, it should be your decision.

Outside of this scenario, we should physically prevent people from doing it, but until the above scenario is a professional practice, you should be able to do it on your own private property.

If someone doesn't want to die of natural causes, that should be their right, especially if they are suffering and there's no strong reason to believe they'll get better.

Making ending ones own life completely illegal is just as cruel as making putting dogs down illegal. Keeping living beings alive just to suffer miserable existences because we desire them to stay alive is selfishness. 

We should try to save them by offering them options that might change their life, but ultimately there should be a legal way to end your life IMO. 

It should be legal with restrictions.

P.S. I am not going to do this, so don't worry I am not suicidal, I just take interest in this subject.

[zurew]

12 minutes ago, ZenAlex said:

Or should we force them to live regardless?

No, we shouldn't. We should rather create a society where most people are happy enough with their life, so they don't want to commit suicide in the firstplace.

If someone really want to kill him/herself, then he/she will do it regardless if its legal or not. The difference is that if there is a legal way to do it, they have a chance to choose between methods, and  their body could be taken care of after death immediately. With there being a legal way to do it, i think there is a lower potential that more suffering will be created.

 

[BlueOak]

If there are complicated medical processes in place. To assess someone's psychological condition, and also their likelihood to recover from crippling pain for example. If these things are considered, then yes.

If I was in too much pain to move physically I would kill myself. Why would I care about the law, i'd be dead. 

There is something missed in emotional pain and also surviving with a certain amount of physical discomfort. Its a rich experience, it shows you are alive. Its never coming again, once you are dead its gone. Its yours only for now, and it can lead to you not wanting to give up that pain, strange as it sounds to someone who has never been deeply tormented or in extreme emotional distress. In some cases its all you have.

If you live there long enough it's expected, it forms a certain security about how you view the world and your place within it. Eventually it forms part of your identity and you learn to live with it, or use it to your and others' advantage. Some easy examples, victims of abuse, or drug users relating to people who have been through that, because who else really can? People who have been in serious accidents or suffered PSD in conflict, speaking or empathizing with others who have gone through it. I never could on the level they do in this example.

Again I made the case in another thread that emotional intelligence needs to be taught in school, and part of that is the ability to allow emotions, to move through people naturally. This means emotional states naturally come and go, they are not resisted, buried, avoided, escaped or magnified to be bigger than they are. This at least would have spared me a couple of decades of deeply depressive states.

*To relate, consider the discomforts you live with or have lived with in life and how they form your view of others/things or the world around you, eventually becoming part of your identity.

Edited May 27, 2022 by BlueOak

[Bobby_2021]

Death is a natural process as life itself. An individual must have the freedom to decide when they no longer choose to put up with it.

-Someone over the age of 70+

- Unbearably miserable physical/metal/social condition,or a combination of those, also must be approved by a doctor.

The approval shouldn't be easily given, but the freedom to end life should be there.

[hoodrow trillson]

Collateral damage is too high.  
 

Every person wether they know it or not, is loved by someone.  Their mother, their father, sister, brother, best friends, nieces, nephews, etc — even if they don’t see it, they are loved.  The immense suffering from a suicide is a massive blow to everyone emotionally who had a connection to that person.  It’s extremely selfish because somebody has to bury the body and it’s not done by just digging a hole and throwing them in there.  Funerals fucking suck

[Bobby_2021]

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59577162

Suicide pod incoming ?

Edited May 27, 2022 by Bobby_2021

[zurew]

57 minutes ago, hoodrow trillson said:

Every person wether they know it or not, is loved by someone.  Their mother, their father, sister, brother, best friends, nieces, nephews, etc — even if they don’t see it, they are loved.  The immense suffering from a suicide is a massive blow to everyone emotionally who had a connection to that person.  It’s extremely selfish because somebody has to bury the body and it’s not done by just digging a hole and throwing them in there.  Funerals fucking suck

I think this would be one of the strongest arguments in favour of not letting people to commit suicide. I still don't think laws would lower down suicide rates, and i also wouldn't want to force someone to live, when they don't want to.

Why would anyone be afraid of a law, when she/he will be dead anyway? Also lets say they would be punsihed for an unsuccesful suicide attempt in that case, they would be even more motivated to try to commit suicide again, so they don't have to suffer even more and longer.

A better support system would be better, where they talk with suicidal people more, try to convince them to live, but at the end of the day suicidal people should be the ones to decide if they want to live or not. It seems pretty immoral to force someone to live, when he/she doesn't want to anymore. We can say that they are selfish because they can possibly cause even more suffering to their loved ones, but that would be about their morality not ours.

Also i think with a better support system, most people who are indecisive about suicide they could be convinced not to do it, and only a much smaller number of people who really wouldn't see any other way, would choose suicide.

Edited May 27, 2022 by zurew

[Blackhawk]

Of course euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legal.

[puporing]

It should be legal but made extremely hard to access (ie, for terminally ill/irreparable conditions that cause ongoing sufferring, maybe room for exceptions as well). The reason is that most people who think about/plans suicide do want to live, they just feel hopeless about their life and the situation they found themselves. So the first priority is to find a way to give people a floor to stand on and the help/connection they need. Unfortunately that's a tall order in most places still, which makes suicide more appealing..