As someone who has provided suicide intervention counselling over the years I can make a few observations from a particular perspective.

The person who genuinely wants to die and has access to means along with a plan is likely to kill themselves. There is no magic spell to prevent this. 'Refutation' is not applicable.

In most of these situations people generally have reasons for dying along with reasons for living. Few people who wish to die don't also have reasons to live - it is the role of an intervention to identify the latter and see if these can overcome the former.

Where this is most challenging is when significant pain is present. Pain which won't go away (whether this is emotional or physical) may overcome anyone's reasons for living. It doesn't take a genius to understand why.

I take the view that suicide is sometimes a reasonable response to situations which have no positive resolution (for instance a terminal disease involving incapacity and distress). I do not view suicide as a sin or as weakness.

absolutely true that suicide is not a weakness but rather quite the opposite, when you think about it. To go against the natural tendency(to survive) of a human to end one's life takes courage. And there's no doubt 8/10 of the people who commit suicide are in tremendous emotional/physical pain which they feel they can't bear anymore. They don't want to die, per se, but they don't want to live with the pain anymore. A slight difference, but different nonetheless.
My issue is about free will as much as the topic of suicide itself. If a human doesn't have the right to use/discard his life, which is his own, what right does he really have?

My issue is about free will as much as the topic of suicide itself. If a human doesn't have the right to use/discard his life, which is his own, what right does he really have? — Echoes

Not sure I follow - can you expand? People don't require the right to make use of suicide and they do so all the time. Or people can fritter away an entire life using substances. What's missing for you in this?

you said you don't look down on suicide as a sin and weakness, and neither do I. But our society does.
My question is: if a person choosing to end his life(which is his own) for whatever reason(hence I gave examples of three different circumstances in my original post) is looked down as a wrongful doing by society, does a human really have any true rights at all?
I understand we humans are complex creatures and are interwoven with other humans, and the act to end one's life impacts those around him. But is that reason enough to go on living when life is really unbearable? Why does society label it as sinful and selfish when it's anything but?
I had a friend who committed suicide a couple months back. Though he had a decent life, he felt life was ultimately pointless. He was severely depressed due to his existential crisis, and didn't want to be a burden on anyone. Though I miss him, I don't see that as selfish at all.
Are humans really free in this society if their choice to exercise their basic rights(to end their life if they feel it's justified) is looked at differently than, say, buying a red colored car? Why is giving birth (bringing a new life into this shit hole, especially with the world as it is now) celebrated when just another part of life(dying) is frowned upon by the society if done by conscious choice?
(*and by free will, I don't mean in the cosmic sense, but rather in the societal sense)

So all you seem to be saying is we should all be given the right to kill ourselves whenever we choose to by state sanction.

The interesting thing for me is that of those people who have received support during episodes of suicidal ideation, they frequently report being very thankful that they didn't go through with it. It was a reaction to an incident, a situation or an episode, which passed. I think it is the nature of humans to sometimes seek suicide in lieu of a better solution to a situational crisis. When the crisis has passed (and this may take hours, days or months), a more positive life may be established.

I'm not saying it should be state sanctioned and I don't support it either(bar a few cases of Euthanasia), but what I'm saying is: if the society tells us we're free, but then labels our act of freedom as sinful and weak, are we really free and do we really have any rights on this planet? I'm talking about the perception and interpretation of society on the issue rather than the act itself.

:100:

Awesome answer, props to your experience with this.

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I got the flu and wanted to die.

If someone is struggling with unbearable pain or stress and is having suicidal thoughts, I don't think it reasonable to say that society's view of this person is that they're weak and sinful. Most people would want to offer a helping hand, especially friends and family. It seems you want people to say "yeah, it's your life, go ahead and end it if that's what you want". But is that really responsible? Is that what a good friend should do? Maybe you view life as valueless and the world as a shithole but for someone who sees things differently, trying to prevent suicide is the obvious thing to do from every conceivable angle.

Does a human really have any true rights at all? — Echoes

What is a true right? And more importantly, what does it mean to have a true right?

If I have a true right to live, will that prevent anyone from killing me?
If I have no true right to kill myself, will that prevent me from killing myself?

We have laws that protect our "rights". But this protection is a protection on paper only. Governments can change most of these laws from one day to the other, with no regard to the will of the population. More importantly though, there is nothing that can prevent someone from violating these laws and rights. There is consequences for violating laws - but there is no preventing it.

I don't believe in rights. I don't think rights are something "to have". And they are not true in any way. They are a concept with the purpose to inspire some or all strangers not to harm and/or murder me.

And...... there is a right to suicide, for whatever reason, and access to information and the means.

It's in your head: Why reducing all problems to 'mental health issues' hurts humanity

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/540331-mental-health-hurts-humanity/

And...... there is a right to suicide, for whatever reason, and access to information and the means. — Natherton

The interesting thing for me is that of those people who have received support during episodes of suicidal ideation, they frequently report being very thankful that they didn't go through with it. It was a reaction to an incident, a situation or an episode, which passed. — Tom Storm

I would argue this should be at the foundation of all thinking about the issue.

I don’t know if this contributes to the discussion, but I think there is a distinction between “true” and “false” suicide.

A true suicide is committed by someone who is no longer willing to continue living; a false one is committed by someone who is forced to exit life by some external circumstance...

...of the latter variety a couple examples come to mind. One is of the alcoholic who has destroyed his liver and been told by the doctor that if he doesn’t quit drinking he will die, yet he continues drinking and therefore dies...

...another example of the latter variety might be a woman who has been taken captive and told that if she doesn’t kill herself all her children will be killed...she is handed a gun...

As an example of “true” suicide, I offer Cato the Younger: he led the Roman Republican army against Caesar in Utica, but when it became clear that Caesar had won, unwilling to become his prisoner of war, Cato disemboweled himself, despite the fact that Caesar was well known for his clemency. In other words, though he could have expected to be pardoned and live, Cato was unwilling to live in a Rome whose republic had been replaced by a dictatorship...

...actually, I think Cato was unwilling to undergo the ignominy of capitulating to a tyrant, and was thinking about how posterity would perceive him. Is this any different than the choice Socrates made? He had his well-placed friends who were ready to pay money and spirit him out into exile...but he chose to stay and drink the hemlock brew....

The ancient examples of suicide—and there are many more I haven’t mentioned, such as Seneca’s—give us a broader view of the matter. @Tom Storm mentions those who were glad to have gotten an intervention. These are the ones caught up in a momentary despair, who are unwilling to live because of some immediate circumstance, and, once saved, are grateful to those who intervened...

...but there are others who, like Cato and Socrates, died according to a principle, not some temporary circumstance, and neither succumbed to an intervention, nor abandoned their principles in order to merely stay alive.

I see the distinction you are making but balk at the true versus false designation. It is not a field to win or lose honor except in the eyes of the living. All of the dead are equal through their death.

All of the dead are equal through their death. — Paine

I would say rather that the dead are unequal according to how they died.

Would you equate the death of a citizen who died in a mudslide with one who died on the battlefield in defense of his fatherland? Yes, two corpses lie equally exanamite at a funeral, but they got there through very different routes.

And it is not only in the eyes of the living that they gained or lost honor, but in their own, when they succumbed to death. I suppose the one suddenly taken away by chance mishap had no opportunity to evaluate his life, but the one who chose to go to war in defense of his country was willing to die if he receive the honor, either living or post-mortem, of having been a true patriot.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that a corpse is equal to a corpse if you just look at them as two dead ppl. But the corpse becomes a symbol of the life that used to be in it, and that has meaning both for that defunct life, and for the lives of those who remain to bury the body.

They are all good to go. We have our reasons for what we do, and yours is no worse, and no better, than mine.

Was the K-Pg extinction event a mass suicide?

The demand for iridium surged from 2.5 metric tons in 2009 to 10.4 metric tons in 2010, mostly because of electronics-related applications. — Wikipedia

In 1980, a team of researchers led by Nobel prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, and chemists Frank Asaro and Helen Vaughn Michel discovered that sedimentary layers found all over the world at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary, formerly called Cretaceous–Tertiary or K–T boundary) contain a concentration of iridium hundreds of times greater than normal. — Wikipedia

Iridium layer at the K-Pg boundary is the smoking gun as regards dinsoaur extinction. Iridium has applications in the hi-tech industry. Hmmmm... :chin:


Were dinosaurs chronically ill or were they dealt a rough hand or yet, did they realize existence is futile in the grand scheme of things?

What amazes me is that if you're kept, nude, all your nails clipped, alone in an empty, padded room, you simply can't kill yourself. The organ systems in your body that keep you alive - the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system - are completely beyond your control i.e. you ca neither stop your heart and nor can you halt breathing.

Since suicide & euthansia are instances of life negating life, death follows, my question is is life death negating death. Is an infant, for example, born everytime death "suicides"? Poor death. :sad:

Could you refute any of their wishes and look down on their decision, if their wishes to die are as rational from their eyes, as is the wish to go on living in the eyes of a person who wants to stay alive? And what free will does a human really have in this society if he doesn't have the right to die if he doesn't want to go on living? — Echoes

I'd probably egg on Person C for being such an ingrate in a world of suffering, strife, and low quality TV shows. Imagine how many people around the world would wish to live the life of Person C. A lot no doubt. So if not with a tinge of irony, Person C and to a variably lesser extent following the same line of reasoning and depending on the nature of the "rough hand", Person B.

Everyone has the "right to die" just not the Right to Die, for various legal reasons not the least of which would be abuse. Imagine forging a document with a signature that says something along the lines of "I wish to be killed by my co-worker with a bullet to the head while walking home from work but I want it to be random and unexpected so I have no fear". That's one way to get a promotion. Or an inheritance. The scenarios for abuse are endless, combined with the "freedom" factor to just print out legal documents and sign it between two parties on a whim without getting "the fascist state" involved basically and inevitably would evolve into being able to print out a Get Away with First Degree Murder Free card.

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Is the right to live the right to die of old age?

Is the right to die the right to be happy?

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59577162 (re: Swiss suicide pod)

Except in cases of unbearable debilitating pain and loss of basic dignity – What's the hurry? Why seek a permanent escape from temporary problems? How can you be so optimistic that the end is certainly the end of suffering?

:death: :flower: