[ExI] Right to Suicide

[Chris Hibbert]

  Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> It's not as simple as that. Most people who try to suicide do it as a
> result of a situational crisis or a depressive illness, which we know will
> pass even with no intervention beyond keeping them from killing themselves
> during the worst moments.

Can you point to evidence of that? Maybe it's the phrase "try to do 
suicide". I'd be surprised to find out that people with "depressive 
illness" can get their shit together well enough to successfully kill 
themselves. I don't have as much doubt that they "try". Is there 
evidence that most successful suicides are also the result of transitory 
situations?

> Should we instead help all these people to die?

I don't strongly believe that the government or medical practitioners 
should help people to commit suicide, it should just not be illegal. I 
wouldn't want to make it easy to buy a suicide kit--whatever it 
consisted of would be to easy to re-purpose as a murder kit. I just 
think doctors should be allowed to counsel people who think it's their 
best option, and it shouldn't be criminal to assist them if reasonable 
assurances could be provided to the courts that it was their choice. I 
think the legal terminology is "a rebuttable presumption".

Chris
-- 
It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup, but not so
easy to turn fish soup back into an aquarium.
-- Lech Walesa on reverting to a market economy.

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
Blog:   http://www.pancrit.org
http://mydruthers.com