[Waragainstsleep]

While some people's opinions on the ethics and legality of suicide are obviously motivated by their own anecdotal experience or perhaps by their religious beliefs, even those who have thought it through will usually agree it should be illegal.
To them its not illegal because its selfish or sinful, its illegal to try to dissuade people jumping off buildings where they might land on someone, to spare future guilt of anyone who might be drafted in to assist but most of all to prevent people from committing murder and using assisted suicide as a get-out. Its really very tricky to legislate because I'll wager that many people who wish to die would also wish to do so without attention or scrutiny which they would necessarily get from any legislated, regulated, legal system of suicide.

[Spheric Harlot]

The legendary Sar-chasm?

You don't see a problem with making something illegal that necessarily results in the culprit escaping punishment?

[ghporter]

Spheric Harlot has hit on the crux of the problem with suicide. It always hurts other people, while the "culprit" escapes whatever punishment society sees fit to inflict. It ALWAYS hurts other people, ALWAYS. There is, to my mind anyway, a difference between this and "assisted suicide" in the context of someone with a terminal illness who wishes to end the suffering they AND their loved ones are experiencing.

Suicide is, at its heart, a selfish act. Not necessarily an intentionally selfish act by any means, since it is so frequently a step taken by someone who cannot see past their misery enough to see that it is selfish and that it will hurt others.

Depression has been called "the common cold of mental illness," but that minimizes its effect on its sufferers. The common cold may be a good metaphor for "a very common affliction," but not very many people have seriously bad outcomes from a cold, whereas most people with clinical depression have some substantially negative outcome at some time or other, whether it's a lost job, a broken marriage, or worse. Unfortunately, depression doesn't have obvious external signs and symptoms as the common cold has, and that makes it hard for others to see when someone is depressed, and hard to help them overcome the depression.

Finally, depression is a neurochemical disease that can be self-perpetuating. It changes the way sufferers think, and how their brains work at a very basic level. Without early intervention, a single episode of clinical depression can lead to chronic depression, with every new episode harder and harder to overcome, despite treatment with "best practice" approaches.

Until the stigma of "mental illness" is lifted from depression, and until it is as easy to find and participate in effective treatment for depression as soon as it manifests itself, people will continue to sink deeper into despair and continue to "escape" by ending their lives, no matter what the cost to anyone else.

[Shaddim]

A close friend of mine killed himself and I miss him a lot, but I understand how much he hurt and that a part of his mind was broken. As his friend, and as a person who doesn't battle severe depression, the onus is on me to understand that he couldn't cope anymore, no matter how much therapy he attended or how many drugs they pumped into his system.

[sek929]

A close friend's mother recently tried to kill herself after a long (and silent) battle with extreme depression. She's doing better, now that her friends and family are aware of her situation and are rallying to support her, but the only reason they can do so is because her attempt failed (she was hospitalized for 3 days in the ICU). So the whole "letting" someone die is just complete BS, you can only be held responsible for the happiness of one person, and that person is yourself. Ultimately all change comes from within, even in the case of clinical depression, if someone simply cannot will themselves to care after years and years what can you do?

My family is rife with mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia mostly) so I've had a front-row seat for a lot of the struggle and stigma a family deals with when a relative is mentally ill. Physical illness and mental illness are cut from the same cloth. Severe depression is a chemical imbalance in the very core being of our body, the brain, and should be viewed the same way as cancer or HIV, an illness of the body to be taken seriously and treated compassionately.

[subego]

I fall firmly in the camp you have a moral right to kill yourself.

Yeah. That might **** me up and hurt me. Shit happens.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by subego 

I fall firmly in the camp you have a moral right to kill yourself.

Yeah. That might **** me up and hurt me. Shit happens.

I agree to a point. I think that, if one makes an informed and fully competent decision to end one's own life, that's morally and ethically sound. Unfortunately, most people who attempt suicide are not competent to make that decision due to depression. That is a very important distinction to make.

If that "shit that happens" is the trigger of a major depressive episode, suicide is not at all appropriate, and treatment of the depression is a far better choice. Depressed people need help to find and take advantage of the treatments available, and those around them should help them with that.