Loren Pechtel

Red Alert!

Any time you see "sending a message" or "sending the message" in an argument about whether something should be legal/ok you probably have a bad argument.

Loren Pechtel

Actually, there's one good reason for making it illegal: So the person can be punished in case of a failed attempt that harms others.

Demosthenes

Any other reasons for making suicide illegal? It seems to me that reasons for keeping suicide legal outweight those for making the act illegal.

If somebody attempts suicide and ends up harming others, the person can be charged with manslaughter, endangerment of others, and various other charges.

What about if the suicide attempt is successful? Then what does the legal system do?

Lastly, what if the attempt fails and the person haven't harmed anybody else. That person will then be prosecuted simply because he wishes to end his life. That's utterly senseless.

IMO, your reason isn't good one at all.

JerryM

Just because something is legally permissible does not send a message that it is morally acceptable or proper. It's not against the law to march in a Ku Klux Klan parade (with proper permits) or write editorials espousing white supremacy, but IMO, those actions are certainly not virtuous. To my knowledge, most state laws only proscribe the act of assisting a suicide. Making an individual subject to criminal penalties for attempting suicide is pretty absurd.

winstonjen

I don't think that this issue is as complicated as people say. As you have pointed out, making it illegal will encourage people to suceed, thus increasing the number of successes. Over time, as awareness of the anti-suicide law approaches, 100%, we can expect the number of failed suicides to approach 0% of all suicide attempts. If that isn't enough reason to abolish ALL laws against suicide, I don't know what is.

A side issue - 'pro-lifers' who are against the rational suicide of the terminally and chronically ill are very hypocritical, IMO, because they don't seem to put the same degree of effort into preventing tragic youth suicides.

winstonjen

Hi! I don't know much about debating, but I agree with you. However, I don't really know the details as to why it's a weak argument. Could you please enlighten me on this issue?

Autonemesis

Newspapers, books, magazines, semaphores, smoke signals - these are for sending messages.

Laws are for ordering society. You want to send a message, buy a telegram. It's a bad argument because it's a non sequitur (off-topic, or changing the subject, in other words).

paul30

I can see the headline now:

Legislature Orders Death Penalty for Suicide Attempts.

Treacle Worshipper

Suicide used to be a capital crime in the UK.

Govt: "Aha! You wanted to kill yourself and you messed up. Well, now we're going to kill you for it."



Nowadays they just give you meds that make you feel even worse with side effects for the first couple of weeks.

MD: "You thought things were so bad you wanted to kill yourself? See how much worse they can get: dry mouth, fever, shakes, nausea. Your life wasn't so bad (before you attempted suicide) after all."

Suicide & attempting suicide should be legal; making it illegal is only likely to increase the success rate.

TW

contracycle

Suicide is somethimes a crime on tha basis that you are a possession of the state, are subject or potentially subject to consription or taxes, and have no right to unliaterally withdraw yourself as a resource from the state.

More prosaically, it is sometimes a safeguard against murder, becuase it eliminates the possiblity of a defendant claiming they had been asked to do the deed, or that it was done by the victim.