on taking one's own life?

Question

number one, i will never do this, i'm just trying to have an intelligent discussion here. i'd like to hear from people who don't view it as a negative act. in my opinion, there is the physical health and there is the mental health. if you're physically so ill you can't go on, your body dies. the same with the mental health. even in nature, everything that isn't healthy and can't prosper, dies.

what are your thoughts and if anyone's reading this and is also suicidally inclined, don't read my question 'cause you won't understand it properly.

thanx

i respect everyone's opinion but pl. stick to my question

Answer 1

I say this all the time: If someone wants badly enough to end his or her life, it should be allowed. I know this is unpopular, and I do discourage people from ending it, but I don't understand why those in misery should be FORCED to live. I have never been suicidal, and I am not just talking about euthanasia for the terminally ill. I work in a field where we see crisis patients all the time, some of whom have such terrible mental illnesses that even medication doesn't take away their pain. Why should these adults be forced to live?

Answer 2

Well, I don't think that a physically fit person should take their own life. That is just a waste of life, which should be seen as the most precious thing in the world. Life only comes around once, so you better value it while you still have it. And, while the person in question might be mentally ill, such issues can be solved through the fixing of brain chemicals. If these chemicals weren't unbalanced, then the person would not feel suicidally inclined in the first place. Allowing a depressed person to commit suicide, to me, is similar to just watching someone dying from the flu. Both are in need of medical aid, just focusing on two different kinds of health: mental and physical. Just because physical health might be a bit more obvious than mental health doesn't mean that they aren't essentially the same thing.

However, if someone is VERY sick and is suffering extreme amounts of pain with no cure in sight, I believe that person has the right to declare if they want to "pull the plug" or not. Similarly, if someone is a vegetable and will always stay a vegetable, it only makes sense to move them out in order to aid a new patient with such wasted energies, since someone who is a vegetable isn't really living out life. They are pretty much mentally dead, in my mind, and therefore have no use of a physical body.

So, that's my basic train of thought on this particular subject.

Answer 3

I personally feel that if I am diagnosed with something horrible and I have exhausted all options (within reason) or I am in too ill health to take care of myself, that I will do as the Indians as Eskimos and go off into the wilderness (with enought alcohol or pain pills to numb the experience a little) and let nature take it's course. I don't consider that suicide, just not prolonging the inevitable. There are too many people who cling to life no matter what the cost (monetary and emotional) when we are all INTENDED to die eventually. How long should you keep trying? I think many people try way past the point of reason, and I will not do it.

Answer 4

well...your question isn't intelligent in a general forum. It seems that your stance on mental health is rather one sided or naive...

Physically, one can deteriorate to the point of death. All the medicines and technology in the world won't put off the inevitable. Psychology is trickier. What may seem to be unbearable one day can often with help and time be overcome. What does not kill us makes us stronger.

There is the rare case, often in schizophrenia that the deterioration is so severe that it is hard to turn around. But, in many cases with assistance people can be helped to live fulfilling lives within their own capacities.

So...I disagree with your hypothesis...that everything that isn't healthy dies. I guess you didn't ask to hear from me...as you wanted to hear an opposing p.o.v. but your statement, in my opinion is flawed.

Answer 5

There are few people commenting here on the ethics of suicide from the standpoint of the survivors. Even for people who think that their loved ones "deserved" to commit suicide, there is profound, long-lasting, and often suppressed grief. I think the ethics of suicide need to be looked at contextually, not just in the sense of individual "rights" or abstractly as a theological wrong, but as an issue that affects all the lives that have touched the suicide victim's. Right down to the one who finds you. How horrible is that?

Answer 6

There are, for as much as I can think of, three reasons or intents upon which a person is a suicide and ends ones own life.

The first being that of an accident, IE: "the mountaineer that falls to his death".

The second is that of intentional design, IE: " the soldier that hurtles himself upon the grenade". Heroic but still suicide!

Finally, we arrive upon that which I like to call "The Fuzzy Middle", the presumed to be premeditated, IE: " the Kamikaze pilot" or "Sepeku Practitioner".

There are many more examples to be found but limited intentions.

I purposely excluded euthanasia as being "assisted" and such never to be considered a true suicide by any means. Yet on the "pro-side", it may very well be heroic in the preservation of the survivors, that being "if it were the true intent of the suicide". There are just as many "pros" as "cons" the debate goes on. The for and against factions are reflected in the religeous beliefs, economic stature and general well being of individual countries...

There are, to my way of thinking, and statistics will hold true (as I have researched this matter) at least 75% of the worlds population above the age of reason (7-9 y.o.) and believers in God, that would accept suicide in two of three intents, and forgive all, as they should!

If a religeon condones suicide, albeit wrong, it must be deemed heroic by that sect or religeon to do so. This would, in there belief make a "suicide bomber" a hero, no less then a "Kamikaze pilot" should be honored as such.

All in all 75% of the world condones two out of three suicides and must forgive all according to religeon! That leaves but 25% to condone and forgive three out of three suicides.

Christianity........ . 2.2 billion
Islam... ....... 1.3 billion
Hindu......... 1.0 billion
Agnostic ........ 1.0 billion
Under age 7-9... 1.0 billion

Some of the figures are projections to end of 2007, agnostics contain all other religeons as well. People under ages 7 - 9 may be deemed to be of the religeon of parents, but I gave them, there own choice and wished them too young to understand suicide...

I believe suicide, is best done in your own company with your own counsel. "As you wish to leave those you love behind, it is best to be sure, to do them no harm, by either a stray bullet or guilt of inadequate love for you!" Look on the bright side of suicide, the cure to all your ill's may occure on the day of your funeral, and your survivors will...survive!

Answer 7

Oregon recognizes the physical conditions you speak of--but not the mental conditions--and allows physician assisted suicide. However, those seeking to end their own lives must meet rigorous criteria. Physicians must certify them to be terminally ill and their deaths must be expected to occur within a specific period of time. Psychiatrists must also certify that they are not suffering from depression. These safeguards are in place to ensure that people are not euthanized because they are deemed by others to be a burden to society or because others could profit from their deaths. Nonetheless, even with these safeguards, it is a controversial law that many regularly seek to overturn. My personal belief is that one's continued existence is the product of a series of choices one makes on a daily basis, as expressed by how one lives one's life--e.g., taking risks, making healthy choices, the career one chooses, where one lives, whether or not one drives within the speed limit--and that that is between him or her and his or her higher power. Whether one ends one's life with a single act or a series of small ones seems the same to me.

Answer 8

I can't impugn your logic. The only thing I can add is that, unlike physical ailments, I don't think there exists a mental ailment that cannot be eliminated or for which there is no viable means of coping such that the person cannot survive.

Answer 9

well, for a start they don´t go to hell , I don´t know how people can say smt like that.....(is this really somewhere in the Bible BTW???) I don´t think people who kill themselves are cowards, some people are severely mentally ill and can not handle life..we shouldn´t judge them.
leaving kids or debts behind might seem very selfish but you can´t enter someone´s mind and even have an idea of someone´s pain...

Answer 10

this life is like an innocent newly-born kid given to you to protect always until your life is taken away by external factors. since this life is NOT yours, you can't take it away. this life belongs to your Creator. you can't judge its suitability to exist or not. leave all the matters of life to your Creator and do whatever you wish to do. If your physical or mental health does NOT permit you to take very good care of your life, find someone who LOVES you. if you don't find any around you, rest assured that your Creator loves you 70 times more than your own mother. Try to see Him in every human being around you and you will know that everyone wants you to be alive except a few negative-minded people.