Because you can't trust physicians as it is.Originally Posted by Wraith
Because you can't trust physicians as it is.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
So what's behind door number two, Monty?
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
The idea behind criminalizing suicide was to allow others to legally intervene, and get them into the mental health system -- even if it was against their will. The goal was to have professionals evaluate them for conditions/diseases that were possibly affecting their judgment, and treating those underlying problems first.
It's hard to imagine a society that would say Free Will and individual choice is sacrosanct, when we know that medications/drugs/trauma/illness/disease can actually damage or alter individual judgment. One of the hardest concepts is defining active vs passive "suicide", and differentiating between healthy lifestyle "norms" and quality of life from their counterparts.
People do self-harm in slow, moderate, or even legal ways: smoking, drinking, over-eating, eating fast food, sedentary lifestyles, unprotected sex, driving recklessly, not wearing helmets or seat belts, getting into relationships with the wrong people, taking on excessive debt, flunking out of school, etc. Those behaviors look more like indulgences (or immature choices) because everyone does something risky, or possibly self-harming, in one way or another. It's part of the Human Condition.
Homeless, "street people", or vagrants can include the mentally ill, drug addicts, runaway youth....but also totally rational adults who choose to live in non-traditional ways. Most of us would call that slow suicide, or think they're crazy to live that way. But then our culture also admires religious vows of poverty or chastity, and doesn't think that's crazy at all.
Addendum. Another aspect is recognizing that religious entities (ie the Roman Catholic Church) has declared suicide a sin. No exceptions.
Sin is never a legitimate reason for law.
First because it's just irrational and nonfunctional to illegalize the successful completion of an act that puts one irretrievably beyond the reach of the law.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
I think people (and I'm sorta in this category) are suspicious of how someone with a terminal illness (or potentially terminal illness) could be manipulated by their family or the medical-industrial complex to just Take the Blue Pill. There's been a lot of positive media coverage of hospice care and emphasizing when patients should give up on treatment, and I mostly agree with it.
But it's also not hard to see the downside of that kind of emphasis in medical care, no?
Ah, but they're not beyond the arm of the law, even after death. Life Insurance companies do not pay beneficiaries, in the event of suicide.
I disagree entirely. That logic only holds if the law only pertained to successful completions of acts and not attempts - that however is not and never has been the case.
Furthermore given that we don't prosecute the dead (except trial by media sometimes) its already the case that this does not apply to successful completions apart from trying those who assist etc
The idea of prospectuing someone who has attempted suicide is fundementally monsterous, however.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
As has been said a few times by myself and others the purpose of this law is not to be able to prosecute people, but rather that because of this law the authorities can ensure that the person involved can get the help they require for their mental health (if need be).
It's so they can force people do get the help that will cause them to continue to live, based on the notion that anyone who attempts suicide is, a priori, not of sound mind.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Which is very often the case.
If it is often the case but not always the case, can we in fact use other tools to compel people unable to make rational decisions to get help?
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
I like to think US laws don't aim to either persecute or prosecute the mentally ill, but it's a fine line.
Yes, we can and do regularly.
If someone is sick then it makes sense to put in place a situation where help is available. Help isn't forced in all situations blindly, but this permits it to be available.
No, but pronounced suicidality is frequently associated--causally--with psychiatric illness. The suicidality signifies a greater severity of illness, represents one of the greater risks of illness. Suicide being illegal doesn't have to have anything to do with justifying forced therapy. It has to do with an outdated approach to suicide-prevention through deterrence and it has to do with the notion that taking a life is wrong, even if it's your own life.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
But "recognizing" when help is needed doesn't have a set standard. If it did, maybe NFL suicides, or any homicide/suicide could have been prevented.
Even if there were "set standards" ("keep an eye on people who've tried once, people who're severely depressed or have some other strongly associated psychiatric or somatic illness, etc") you wouldn't be able to catch 'em all.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
We know that. But there's been a rash of suicides and homicides/suicides within the NFL. I'm not sure why, other than sports industries accepting/overlooking aggressive behaviors as "part of the sport". Many top athletes have learned that pain or self-harm has been par for the course, and just something they need to "work through". We see it in non-contact sports for dancers, gymnasts, bikers, skiiers....but also contact sports like football, rugby, ice hockey, or boxing.
In addition to providing the availability of testing, help and support for the most vulnerable in society ... What would be the purpose of legalising it?
De-criminalizing suicide is the first step.
any other time, that would have ended up in the pictures thread, but it fits to nicely here.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
And whose life will that improve?
And this has what to do with the law or criminalized suicide? Look, there are a lot of different arrangements for criminal justice systems but they are all built around doing some mix of protecting society from further harm by a perpetrator via punishing him, rehabilitating him, or just locking him away so he can't do any more harm to others/society and providing justice to those he has harmed. None of those purposes can be served by trying to levy the criminal justice system against someone who is dead.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
If someone wants to talk about attempted suicide than they should say attempted suicide. The law in any jurisdiction that matters here has also draws a distinction between attempting an act and succeeding at that act. The former is of far less interest and is responded to far less severely.
Furthermore given that we don't prosecute the dead (except trial by media sometimes) its already the case that this does not apply to successful completions apart from trying those who assist etc[/QUOTE]
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
One's estate can still be sued.
Hope is the denial of reality
That does jack-all wrt the function of the criminal justice system as I outlined to GGT. The logic is to be a deterrent (do this and we won't respect your wishes/will cause some degree of harm to who/what you loved) but A) those affected by the workings of such law are not those who engaged in the criminalized act which is rather a miscarriage of justice and B) by the time anything in this regard is invoked the act to be deterred has already happened and the actor is not going to be doing anything ever again.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Anywho, I think the bigger reason for suicide being illegal is how can you lock someone up (in a psychiatric ward) for actions that are not illegal? And if suicide is not illegal, then surely "threat to self" stops being a reason for requiring psychiatric help?
Hope is the denial of reality
Why is it monsterous?
Recall the guy who shot the Arizona Congresswoman and killed a half dozen or so others? He was mentally ill when he pulled the trigger, was medicated in jail against his will to get him suitable for trial, then he was sentenced to life in prison after a guilty plee. They might have given him a death sentance had he not bargained down to life. Isn't that prosecuting the mentally ill? I, like you, thought insanity would have been taken into consideration in his defense. Apparently he was so heavily sedated during his sentancing that he was barely responsive. Is this justice? Can there be any justice in such a situation?
Generally speaking Life's only function appears to be to continue living. Individual living things all attempt to stay alive as long as possible, unless the individual death promotes the continuance of the species --- and unless the individual is defective somehow. Taking this line of reasoning as premise, no healthy human individual should want to commit suicide. Conversely, if a human wants to commit suicide, it is unhealthy and usually we try to help unhealthy people become healthy, especially when probable death is involved. Actually aiding a suicide, rather than helping an individual get better, is a lot like murder.
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