Is suicide justified?

[Stanton Moore]

Power over the end of your own life is one of the most basic 'rights' a person has. Why should my personal feelings about the methodology of the end matter at all?
My sister died of an overdose a few years ago. I'm sure it was an accident, because she only took have the bottle. My other sister and mother were so disturbed by the possibility that she did this intentionally that they even changed the obituary to exclude the possibility. So it said something about complications of a heart condition, which she did have.
But the fact remains that she is gone. Intentional or not, she isn't coming back.
So what difference does it make? Why do the details make a difference to anyone's understanding of it? Why is it a moral issue? Why should anyone feel differently based on a perception of intent?
Why shold the living feel shamed by the intent of the dead? Isn't the finality of it enough to obviate this kind of thinking?

 

[Fluffywolf]

Why shold the living feel shamed by the intent of the dead? Isn't the finality of it enough to obviate this kind of thinking?

I don't disagree with you there. It's pretty much my stance on it too. If someone kills himself than that's that. Not like we can do anything about it. And wondering wether or not we could have prevented it is not going to help either.

But I also know that when it happens to someone really close to you, it's not easy to come to that conclusion. Questions just keep popping up and a lot of confusing emotions are felt. A death from natural causes, or even by accident, is much more easy to deal with than someone taking their own life. It just creates this big unknown factor into it all. And accepting it is not going to be easy for most people.

I admire you for having that stance after losing someone so close to you. I can't say I took it quite so well myself when it happened to someone close to me. It probably took me about a year to get over it. And sometimes I'm still not sure I am really over it. It's still a question that will probably plague me until my death. But it's no longer a question that is dominately on my mind.

 

[Betty Blue]

But the fact remains that she is gone. Intentional or not, she isn't coming back.
So what difference does it make? Why do the details make a difference to anyone's understanding of it? Why is it a moral issue? Why should anyone feel differently based on a perception of intent?
Why shold the living feel shamed by the intent of the dead? Isn't the finality of it enough to obviate this kind of thinking?

It does make a difference. The idea that someone has been suffering in silence who could possibly have been helped by those closest if they knew is very painful and can make people feel/think they have failed as a sibling/parent/friend/so. If someone dies of natural causes it dosn't stop the pain or possibly even change the level that would be felt it's just that those who are left behind may have more difficulty coming to terms with it. Well i don't know the specifics, so i'm assuming a bit here. I appologise if i am doing so incorreclty.

 

[Stanton Moore]

I don't disagree with you there. It's pretty much my stance on it too. If someone kills himself than that's that. Not like we can do anything about it. And wondering wether or not we could have prevented it is not going to help either.

But I also know that when it happens to someone really close to you, it's not easy to come to that conclusion. Questions just keep popping up and a lot of confusing emotions are felt. A death from natural causes, or even by accident, is much more easy to deal with than someone taking their own life. It just creates this big unknown factor into it all. And accepting it is not going to be easy for most people.

I admire you for having that stance after losing someone so close to you. I can't say I took it quite so well myself when it happened to someone close to me. It probably took me about a year to get over it. And sometimes I'm still not sure I am really over it. It's still a question that will probably plague me until my death. But it's no longer a question that is dominately on my mind.

I don't think it matters, what you say to yourself, how 'rational' you want to be in thought about it. In the end, it's an emotional wound. It hurts whether or not you can feel it now or find some way to forget it temporarily. We humans use reason as a way to explain, but also as a way to avoid. In the grand scheme of emotion + reason = thought, you can't put the emotional elements in a box and hope that your reason and logic will make you feel better.

 

[jixmixfix]

It's never justified IMO

I tend to agree to an extent but what about child molesters or serial killers? How do you justify them living? how can they justify themselves living? especially if they've gotten to the point of not being able to control themselves?

 

[jixmixfix]

an inconsequential conversation. whether suicide is "justified" is going to be the last thing on the mind of someone seriously considering it

How do you figure? most people who think about killing themselves contemplate before they try to commit the act.

 

[Nicodemus]

One, my main point with Orangey was that I find it odd that people cannot figure out what 'natural' is; that understanding why what is natural is so hard. And none of you seem to be answering me...

Try to define 'natural'. You will find that many things you consider good are unnatural.

 

[Lexicon]

I think when someone dies suddenly, in a way that seems otherwise ''preventable,'' such as a car wreck, suicide, or murder- the people closest to the individual are likely to experience some degree of survivor's guilt. The knowledge in of itself that, ''this wasn't supposed to/didn't need to happen,'' can generate so many what-if-I-had-done/been-xxx scenarios, that the survivor begins to feel a sense of ill placed responsibility for the death. I think it's just a part of the process, for some people, of wrapping their minds around the fact someone they loved is abruptly gone forever- can we really even grasp forever? We have to adapt to the new reality of that person no longer being present.

I think I understand what [MENTION=6466]nebbykoo[/MENTION] was getting at, though. To carry that sort of guilt around, and dwell on it, changes nothing. All we can do is try our best in life to be there for those we care for.

When my brother died on a military base, we didn't know for two weeks what the cause of death even was- They found him in his room- so I did have to contemplate the possibility that he may have taken his own life. The guilt that I couldn't have prevented that was paralysing. When we were informed his death was a homicide, that irrational guilt didn't change, though there was additional anger, of course. To this day, his homicide remains technically unsolved, more or less brushed under the rug. There's only so far you can take some of that weight with you. People ask me how I'm not relentlessly hunting the suspect down to find some sense of justice or closure. In deaths where someone's life is intentionally taken-be it by his own hand or that of another's- there is no ''closure.'' Nothing will ever fill that cold void in the corners of my mind. The ache of his absence, and the sadness of his lost future never really leaves- but I've learned not to carry much of the guilt or anger that comes with deaths of this nature. If I didn't, it would eat me alive- and at that point- I might as well bury my heart in the cemetery and bleed out on the grass. Wasting another life.

I think [MENTION=6466]nebbykoo[/MENTION] might've been trying to suggest not carrying that, dwelling on- living that individual's death, for the rest of your life. We cannot control what others do, ultimately. And when people die, all the moral judgements in the world will not resurrect them. All we can to is try to live, and be there for one another while we're all here.

 

[Tantive]

I'm going to go past the original question and say this.
No one is required to give justification for their suicide but to themselves.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

Try to define 'natural'. You will find that many things you consider good are unnatural.

I did not say that. I said natural, regarding our biological bodies, for one thing, is usually the best route to take.

Unnatural benefits are many and varied. And I think it's a great topic for discussion. I was thinking about it yesterday.

I think the best inventions and technologies involve changing our cognitive experiences; things which appeal to our higher minds, like the internet (of course everything is best in moderation). I think inventions and technologies that make our physical lives easier, like automated farming practices, for one example, have just promoted a more unhealthy lifestyle overall.

 

[Edgar]

They often don't remember who they are or where they are, and sometimes cannot even think much at all. Yet we go to extraordinary measures to keep this mass of cells alive. I have to ask why. And I have to wonder if that is the best route to take.

It's a combination of religious mores and financial interests. Suicide/assisted suicide is highly frowned upon in Christianity, which is ingrained in the American culture, so that's one thing. As for financial interests: a hospital can easily make more money from postponing an elderly person's death by 6 months than they could have from all other medical bills that that person incurred in their lifetime.* And considering that this is a highly emotional issue for a lot of people, it's quite easy to sway them against legalizing suicide.

*My brother works in oncology. He was telling me how they wheel in 80+ year old patients into a multi-million dollar machine to treat their cancer with radiation therapy.

If I was in my 80s with one foot in the grave, I'd rather enjoy a month of a fairly normal living than 6 months of being blasted with radiation and poisoned by chemo therapy. Fuck that shit.

Also, if I'm so messed up from Alzheimer's that I can't even remember my own goddamn name, I'd rather be dead.

 

[Viridian]

an inconsequential conversation. whether suicide is "justified" is going to be the last thing on the mind of someone seriously considering it

I tend to agree with this, at least from my layman's POV (and after reading a bit about clinical depression). It's not so much that they're selfish (and, frankly, I find it sort of unproductive to label the person who attempted to take his own life as such), but that, for whatever reason, they can't cope with it anymore - "it" reffering to external situations, overwhelming feelings, despair, mood disorders, etc.

I think sometimes the agony is too much to take. Doesn't mean we shouldn't help people who think of committing suicide, but it's a delicate situation. Plus, if you emphasize that the person's true value lies with being alive to keep their loved ones happy, what happens when someone is widowed, or moves away, or the children leave the nest?

/2¢

 

[Nicodemus]

I did not say that. I said natural, regarding our biological bodies, for one thing, is usually the best route to take.

So if you get cancer: let nature take its course. This is 18th century thinking.

 

[cascadeco]

If I was in my 80s with one foot in the grave, I'd rather enjoy a month of a fairly normal living than 6 months of being blasted with radiation and poisoned by chemo therapy. Fuck that shit.

Also, if I'm so messed up from Alzheimer's that I can't even remember my own goddamn name, I'd rather be dead.

My views tend to be similar; I don't want my life to be strung along if I'm no longer living in any capacity that I would call life - especially if it's old age and I consider it my time.

I need to get a living will written up soon.

 

[Lexicon]

My views tend to be similar; I don't want my life to be strung along if I'm no longer living in any capacity that I would call life - especially if it's old age and I consider it my time.

I need to get a living will written up soon.

Yeah, if I sustained permanent brain damage [leaving me in a persistent vegetative state] or any of the above described, please, pull the fucking plug.

 

[1487610420]

Yeah, if I sustained permanent brain damage [leaving me in a persistent vegetative state] or any of the above described, please, pull the fucking plug.

Any last words?

 

[Lexicon]

So if you get cancer: let nature take its course. This is 18th century thinking.

This reminds me of my old ISTP roommate -who is a nurse- telling me about the time he had to care for a 13yr old girl who'd developed endometrial cancer. It was completely operable, and could have been resolved, at the stage it was first detected. Her parents, however, firmly believed in ''just letting God & Mother Nature decide,'' -basically condemning their child to a long, painful, unnecessarily early death. Needless to say, my friend was profoundly disgusted and frustrated by the more or less primitive approach these people took to ''care'' for their daughter.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

It's a combination of religious mores and financial interests. Suicide/assisted suicide is highly frowned upon in Christianity, which is ingrained in the American culture, so that's one thing. As for financial interests: a hospital can easily make more money from postponing an elderly person's death by 6 months than they could have from all other medical bills that that person incurred in their lifetime.* And considering that this is a highly emotional issue for a lot of people, it's quite easy to sway them against legalizing suicide.

*My brother works in oncology. He was telling me how they wheel in 80+ year old patients into a multi-million dollar machine to treat their cancer with radiation therapy.

If I was in my 80s with one foot in the grave, I'd rather enjoy a month of a fairly normal living than 6 months of being blasted with radiation and poisoned by chemo therapy. Fuck that shit.

Also, if I'm so messed up from Alzheimer's that I can't even remember my own goddamn name, I'd rather be dead.

Agreed. But mainly our thinking really is along those lines: Keep people alive at any cost. Yet we don't seem to care very much about quality of life...

And, letting someone die who cannot take care of himself isn't really suicide in my mind. But I'm not sure there is a term for it. Probably because we don't even acknowledge it as a viable possibility in western society. Any thoughts?

So if you get cancer: let nature take its course. This is 18th century thinking.

I didn't say that. We have hardly even cracked open the discussion. Do you always leap so far ahead?

Mainly I was discussing end of life issues and keeping people alive who, without our ministrations, would die relatively quickly by not being able to feed or water themselves. And how this rubs up against suicide, but really isn't exactly.

 

[Nicodemus]

This reminds me of my old ISTP roommate -who is a nurse- telling me about the time he had to care for a 13yr old girl who'd developed endometrial cancer. It was completely operable, and could have been resolved, at the stage it was first detected. Her parents, however, firmly believed in ''just letting God & Mother Nature decide,'' -basically condemning their child to a long, painful, unnecessarily early death. Needless to say, my friend was profoundly disgusted and frustrated by the more or less primitive approach these people took to ''care'' for their daughter.

It is as the great Galiani said: Nature does not care about us.

I didn't say that. We have hardly even cracked open the discussion. Do you always leap so far ahead?

Mainly I was discussing end of life issues and keeping people alive who, without our ministrations, would die relatively quickly by not being able to feed or water themselves. And how this rubs up against suicide, but really isn't exactly.

I am not interested in a discussion with you. I wanted to give you something that would make you reconsider your perspective. Since that seems fruitless, I will stop here.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

So if you get cancer: let nature take its course. This is 18th century thinking.

[MENTION=10757]Nicodemus[/MENTION]

I am not interested in a discussion with you. I wanted to give you something that would make you reconsider your perspective. Since that seems fruitless, I will stop here.

When you quote me and post a statement addressing something I've said, I consider that a form of discussion. You needn't be a brusque ass in response. You're lucky I'm even addressing your comment.

The fact is you jumped way ahead to putting words in my mouth regarding the cancer thing. Cancer treatment is a form of technology. Technology can obviously supersede nature in many ways. But in most ways as it regards our bodies and the earth, it often falls short of its mark. And especially as we near the edges of our reality here on earth, regarding life and death, it's not very helpful, is it? It's mostly beneficial in the middle of our lives, where there is more wiggle room for qualitative endeavors.