Is Suicide An Act Of Bravery Or Cowardice

[Hal 9000]

Now, whats obvious here is this; the reason we don't currently allow doctor assisted suicide, is because people like...well, all of you won't draw a line. As long as you preach that the Sue Rodriguez situation is the same as the Robin Williams situation, we will have a problem with doctor assisted suicide.

Personally, I have been at the very forefront of assisted suicde and do believe in it, but what will undoubtedly happen is that people who are depressed (and people like you) will try to equalize things out and allow the depressed person to end it all using the old "by that logic" routine.

[Hal 9000]

Your first 4 I are not suicide I would argue. Number 5 could be. Your last one is just a troll for the not too bright.

Ahhh, but WCR and many others don't see them as different, they want to harass me for categorizing instead of seeing the obvious differences of when and why people take their own lives.

[Guest]

Now, whats obvious here is this; the reason we don't currently allow doctor assisted suicide, is because people like...well, all of you won't draw a line. As long as you preach that the Sue Rodriguez situation is the same as the Robin Williams situation, we will have a problem with doctor assisted suicide.

Personally, I have been at the very forefront of assisted suicde and do believe in it, but what will undoubtedly happen is that people who are depressed (and people like you) will try to equalize things out and allow the depressed person to end it all using the old "by that logic" routine.

Why shouldn't they? Again, what right have you (or anyone) to force someone to suffer when they don't want to? You seem to think that you have the line in your possession.

[On Guard for Thee]

Ahhh, but WCR and many others don't see them as different, they want to harass me for categorizing instead of seeing the obvious differences of when and why people take their own lives.

Jumping into a pool to try ad save your drowning child is not suicide. C'mon.

[waldo]

Your first 4 I are not suicide I would argue. Number 5 could be. Your last one is just a troll for the not too bright.

I really didn't expect a reply... he shouldn't have bothered with the tripe he provided. The last trolling example is worth expanding on simply because the guy can't seem to wrap his thinking around diminished mental state/capacity and how that can affect certain people toward ending their lives... I think it was WCR that emphasized the same point earlier on. Instead we read a most callous summation, his, "Life sucks, I'm a failure, nobody likes me, it's too hard to go on."

[On Guard for Thee]

I really didn't expect a reply... he shouldn't have bothered with the tripe he provided. The last trolling example is worth expanding on simply because the guy can't seem to wrap his thinking around diminished mental state/capacity and how that can affect certain people toward ending their lives... I think it was WCR that emphasized the same point earlier on. Instead we read a most callous summation, his, "Life sucks, I'm a failure, nobody likes me, it's too hard to go on."

I am no expert and I doubt if there are any accurate stats, but I doubt there are a lot of people who actually commit the act based of the "life sucks" idea.

[Hal 9000]

Why shouldn't they? Again, what right have you (or anyone) to force someone to suffer when they don't want to? You seem to think that you have the line in your possession.

Well, if we let Sue Rodriguez die on her own terms - and we all know her circumstances, then sure enough people will be asking for assisted suicide because of depression. I for one don't want to see that - and that's an opinion. With that said, i don't want to force people to do anything, I'd rather they didn't but people will do what they do.

Just look how far assisted suicide has gone in places that do allow it, it's a slippery slope.

Why is nobody on your case for saying suicide prevention is selfish?

[Guest]

Well, if we let Sue Rodriguez die on her own terms - and we all know her circumstances, then sure enough people will be asking for assisted suicide because of depression. I for one don't want to see that - and that's an opinion. With that said, i don't want to force people to do anything, I'd rather they didn't but people will do what they do.

Just look how far assisted suicide has gone in places that do allow it, it's a slippery slope.

Why is nobody on your case for saying suicide prevention is selfish?

How is it not?

As to the slippery slope argument, stop the slip. Don't advocate not doing the right thing due to something that might happen as well. Just stop that thing from happening.

Edited August 27, 2015 by bcsapper

[Guest]

Deleted (Quoted when I should have edited)

Edited August 27, 2015 by bcsapper

[Hal 9000]

Nobody said these people didn't have a diminished mental state, and I agreed that they are thinking irrationally when they do it. But, rational/irrational and diminished are adjectives just like selfish. Just because they are acting irrational, does not mean they are not acting selfish.

P.S - Why does she get away with calling them irrational, you get away with calling them diminished mentally and yet i get beaten up for using selfish?

Edited August 27, 2015 by Hal 9000

[Hal 9000]

How is it not?

As to the slippery slope argument, stop the slip. Don't advocate not doing the right thing due to something that might happen as well. Just stop that thing from happening.

Every country that has assisted suicide has started with the Sue Rodiguez types of illness, that has slipped to old age people, depressed people and disabled babies...so on and so on. In many cases, it's not even a doctor making the call, it's nurses and family.

Mom has dementia, time to go!

[On Guard for Thee]

Nobody said these people didn't have a diminished mental state, and I agreed that they are thinking irrationally when they do it. But, rational/irrational and diminished are adjectives just like selfish. Just because they are acting irrational, does not mean they are not acting selfish.

And it doesn't mean that they are. You're just digging bigger hole as you go on buddy.

[Guest]

Every country that has assisted suicide has started with the Sue Rodiguez types of illness, that has slipped to old age people, depressed people and disabled babies...so on and so on. In many cases, it's not even a doctor making the call, it's nurses and family.

Mom has dementia, time to go!

Sue desperately wants to die, to end her suffering, but because Mom might, hypothetically, be in danger, Sue has to suffer on.

For Pete's sake, let Sue go and look after Mom.

Edited August 27, 2015 by bcsapper

[Hal 9000]

And it doesn't mean that they are. You're just digging bigger hole as you go on buddy.

They clearly are. They are clearly not thinking how their actions will affect the people around them. Even WCR agrees on that.

[kimmy]

Sometimes being selfish is ok.

If someone is in such pain or fear that they feel continuing their life is an unbearable burden, then maybe they should just do it. Their family and loved ones-- if they even have any-- will be hurt, but they'll recover.

If you'd prefer someone continue to live with unbearable misery than cause you to feel some temporary grief, aren't *you* the one being selfish?

-k

[Hal 9000]

Sue desperately wants to die, to end her suffering, but because Mom might, hypothetically, be in danger, Sue has to suffer on.

For Pete's sake, let Sue go and look after Mom.

I agree completely.

[Hal 9000]

Sometimes being selfish is ok.

If someone is in such pain or fear that they feel continuing their life is an unbearable burden, then maybe they should just do it. Their family and loved ones-- if they even have any-- will be hurt, but they'll recover.

If you'd prefer someone continue to live with unbearable misery than cause you to feel some temporary grief, aren't *you* the one being selfish?

-k

I always like your view points Kimmy...and I wish it were true, but families never recover from a suicide.

[kimmy]

I don't think that's true.

One of my cousins took his own life. It was devastating for everyone, but the family endured. The parents stayed together; the surviving siblings built lives for themselves and raised children of their own... everything turned out ok.

"Recover" isn't the right word to use. Things never go back to being the way they were... but they do go on. People survive. Their lives are changed, but not destroyed. Adversity happens. Suicide, accidental death, murder, incurable disease... unexpected death touches many families. It happens. People survive.

-k

[WIP]

We have so much more material wealth these days but in the end most people are feeling less.

And that alone blows up the logic behind ever-increasing wealth being the primary economic goal! After basic needs for food, shelter and clothing are met, what's important is where people see themselves within a social hierarchy. When that hierarchy becomes more disparate and stratified (as consumer capitalism is doing today) no surprise that the material achievements become less satisfying for those who see others as having more.

[WIP]

Men have 3.5 times as many suicides per capita as women.

LGBTQIA+ people have much higher suicide rates than the vast majority of the population.

This strongly suggests to me that gender roles are the primary cause of the majority of suicides in Canada and elsewhere.

And it could suggest that men in modern society feel greater pressures for achievement than women do, and since sociology studies have also long demonstrated that men do not develop the support networks of friends and family as well as women, many men who are depressed move in an opposite direction and become more isolated and withdrawn.

It's not surprising that gay and trans people have higher suicide rates, considering our cultural heritage of not accepting anything that isn't cookie cutter hetero male-led nuclear family. Anyone who doesn't fit the mould is going to have to face more rejection and persecution than average.

A factoid I came across on the radio earlier finds that 40% of homeless youth are gay or transgendered. No doubt that adds to the high suicide rates! The solution has to start with mainstream society pushing back against all forms of intolerance and persecution of various scapegoats selected by crypto-fascists and demagogues....but that is going to get more and more difficult in the years ahead, as incomes stagnate, debtloads increase, and bad news from all sides lands on us.

[WIP]

Suicide is not only cowardice, it's selfish.

Says the computer with no capacity for empathy or that everyone's mind is different, and we can't expect others to do what we think 'we would do' under similar circumstances.

[WIP]

In regards to the troops, i think your on the wrong track, going back was not the problem, many of those soldiers that have PTSD have completed multiple tours.....going back although not easy for anyone, was the easy part, after all soldiers have an image to portray as both mental , physically tough as steel....anything less than that, well would question your abilities as a soldier...and for a soldier this is the real beast of burden.....to live up to the recruiting posters.....not to let your comrades down ever....

Thanks for sharing....I did read your post, but wanted to edit for brevity. I don't consider soldiering to a profession that should be exalted as every warrior culture before us has a habit of doing (every warrior religion always reserves the best seats in heaven for fallen warriors). I've long considered military to be something that is sometimes necessary, but should be applied with reserve and extreme caution, in large part because of what it does to the men (and now women) who have to do the dirty work of fighting and getting maimed and risking life in a theater of war, and finding little or no help decompressing and resuming "normal" life again when they return home. This is the #1 reason why chickenhawk leaders (warmongers with no personal military experience) who use military and send troops or bombers in for political objectives, fill me with rage!

Off topic, I also feel uneasy about the men who do not experience ptsd symptoms....the so called "super soldiers" who often make careers in elite commando units so that they can feel the rush of being in livefire situations. These soldiers are likely borderline psychopath to begin with, if their need for an adrenaline rush is that high! A big part of the reason why long-running conflicts have a hard time coming to an end even after the material causes of the war have been removed, is because there are a number of people who have adapted to life during wartime and want to keep it running. Now that war is becoming permanent in more and more places in the world, the numbers of mentally unbalanced warriors who feed off of death, destruction and anarchy will keep growing.

[BubberMiley]

CPC MP Steven Fletcher, who is paralyzed from the neck down, makes a pretty compelling case that assisted suicide should be legal. Unfortunately he has been quite vocal about his views, which are counter to his government, and that is never allowed no matter what. He was promptly dropped from Cabinet.

[BC_chick]

In another thread, there had been a reference to a suicide. One of the posters referred to the act of suicide to be cowardly. I do know that many people feel it is an act of bravery and yet others write it off as the result of a deadly disease called depression.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/help/bb/info/suicide

Approximately 3,500 suicides take place in Canada annually, slightly below deaths due to cancers of the colon and breast. Suicide is the seventh-most common cause of death among Canadian males, and tenth-highest among both sexes combined.

It appears to be the least talked about cause of death in the world.

Is suicide an act of bravery or one of cowardice?

That was me and it was in the context of the Ashley Madison suicides - not all suicides.

A person who kills themselves as a result of a catastrophic event in life which *they* created is a cowardly act, IMO. However, if someone commits suicide as a result of ongoing inability to have a happy meaningful life, then that's totally different. It's not bravery nor cowardice, it's mental-illness.

[BC_chick]

Now, whats obvious here is this; the reason we don't currently allow doctor assisted suicide, is because people like...well, all of you won't draw a line. As long as you preach that the Sue Rodriguez situation is the same as the Robin Williams situation, we will have a problem with doctor assisted suicide.

Personally, I have been at the very forefront of assisted suicde and do believe in it, but what will undoubtedly happen is that people who are depressed (and people like you) will try to equalize things out and allow the depressed person to end it all using the old "by that logic" routine.

People kill themselves, that's a fact of life. Why not provide a safe way out?