Suicide: m2¢

[Vox Populi]

Before posting an immediate response, please choose your wording carefully. Members of our community may very well be dealing with the loss of a loved one as a result of suicide. Thank you.

There are several threads I have looked into on the Something For All section of the forums before attempting to create this thread. I initially considered completely leaving the links to these threads out of this one, as users may read the arguments and be persuaded into changing their beliefs prior to engaging in this thread; after all - isn't that what a good debater's argument is intended to do?

I would like to first cite RSAccountTrader's thread, Life has no logical purpose. In this thread he argues that (by what appears to be the Law of Contrapositive - a form of deductive reasoning, or possibly a Jedi Mind Trick):

Thesis: Life has no purpose (that can be understood by current human logic)
1. For life to have a purpose, it must be more than what we experience on the earth.
2. For life to be more than we experience on earth, there must be a higher being (or power).
2. For there to be a higher being, the higher being must have been created (presumably from a higher being).
3. Under current logic, something cannot be created out of nothing.
4. Therefore, there is no possible "highest" power
5. Therefore, there is no ultimate purpose in life.
6. mindfuck
.

The Law of Contrapositive states that if a conclusion is false, then the hypothesis must be false as well. This law is extremely conditional, for example:

• If you find money, then you should return it.
• No money is returned.
• Thus, no money was found.

Morals come into play here, but let's not travel down that road and get distracted from the topic at hand^_^.

I have cited RsAccountTrader's thread here to show the belief that many users (and the population who do not use Sythe) hone as one condition for suicide. *"Life has no purpose".*

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Second, I would like to introduce xøx's thread, Rational Suicide. This thread was interesting to me due to a statement xøx had made in his thread:

"Could it be possible for a completely healthy person to rationally decide that there are more cons than pros in being alive, and therefore decide to stop living"

"...completely healthy person..."

In 1946 the World Health Organization defined health as: "A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity." As I have quoted above, xøx asks if it is probable for a completely healthy person to rationally decide that there are more cons than pros of life, therefore choosing to end it.

Well:

1. To redefine xøx's question: Can a human being in good health (of mind and body) rationally decide to end their life and, if they can rationally decide to commit suicide, does that eliminate the possibility that they were ever in good health to begin with?
2. It has been documented that animals will commit suicide for no apparent reason, ignoring their natural instinct to survive (some examples may be found here).

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Thirdly I would like to cite Ashaxx's thread, entitled Euthanasia. Euthanasia, by definition, is the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. Essentially, Euthanasia is the assisted suicide of the patient by the care provider.

Euthanasia is illegal in a large portion of the world, as many countries view it as homicide with another label. Asphaxx's thread was particularly interesting because:

1. It introduces Euthanasia.
2. It introduces Tony Nicklinson, a 58 year-old who was paralyzed from the neck down. Tony spent his life through assisted living, in which he needed assistance on everyday tasks including eating, using the restroom as sanitary as possible, bathing and even getting dressed. Tony asked the courts to allow his doctor to provide Euthanasia, which they repeatedly denied. Tony's story ends when he had decided to starve himself to death, a very painful way to go.

- - -​

I have attempted to cite the information from previous Suicide-related debate topics from the Original Posts to the best of my ability. I have not intentionally included any information from the replies to these threads, as I have not read the replies myself.

- - -

Things to Consider​

• Suicide occurs for many, many reasons. As stated above, one reason suicide occurs is the idea that: "Life has no purpose."
• In what state of health is the person who can commit suicide in, exactly? Are they truly in good health and thinking rationally?
• Euthanasia is the practice of assisting a patient in committing suicide due to their inability to do so.

- - -

Useful Links​

• Suicide.org provides the telephone numbers globally for suicide prevention hotlines. If you or a loved one is considering suicide, please do not hesitate to call - it could save a life.
• Rules for the debate forum. Please follow them accordingly!
• SAVE is an acronym for "Suicide Awarness Voices of Education". The link I have provided is Suicide Statistics & Facts for the United States for our analytic and emotional debaters.
• The three forms of (basic) argument types: Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning and Reasoning by Analogy.
• SFA: Not an argument is a very basic list of fallacies, or an error in reasoning, used in debating.

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Thank you for all of those who have taken the time to read this thread top-to-bottom! It is now 4 AM in the morning, so I'm almost positive I've made some errors in this thread. Can't do much about it now!


As for myself:

• The human being is capable of committing suicide. Therefore, as immoral as it may be, we were not "designed" to live forever if we can simply take our own lives.
• Suicide is for unhealthy individuals who cannot cope with their problems alone and often never seek the proper help they deserve.
• Suicide is an unfortunate event that occurs, which defeats our purpose in/of life, which I believe is to constantly progress so that we may one day discover the undiscovered (sounds like a politician's answer to a question ).
• Euthanasia should be legalized with proper documentation if there truly is no satisfactory or comforting alternative.

Sythe users - how do you feel?

 

Euthenasia should be legal for those with terminal illness or long, brutal diseases which leave the body unable to look after oneself.

I dont think it should be open for anyone who wants to die. Producing an easily accessed way to die would increase suicide in depressed teens and such. When in fact, this can be prevented and other, more appropriate medical attention can be given. Suicide isnt an easy thing to want or try to commit, and it shouldn't be made any easier.

 

[Vox Populi]

Euthenasia should be legal for those with terminal illness or long, brutal diseases which leave the body unable to look after oneself.

I dont think it should be open for anyone who wants to die. Producing an easily accessed way to die would increase suicide in depressed teens and such. When in fact, this can be prevented and other, more appropriate medical attention can be given. Suicide isnt an easy thing to want or try to commit, and it shouldn't be made any easier.

In the United States, Euthanasia is technically legal as individuals have the right to create an Advanced Directive (creating a Medical Power of Attorney the individual trusts with their life if they are incapable of making decisions themselves), hence the "Pulling the Plug" (on life support) issue.

A major argument used by those against Euthanasia is the medical advances of Palliative Care, or the area of healthcare that specializes on the relieving and preventing the suffering of patients, and the proven effects of patients well-being in said healthcare in which patients live often 2.7 months longer than patients receiving regular hospice care.



In my opinion, if Euthanasia were to be legalized it would open Pandora's Box in which lawmakers, politicians, and every concerned soccer mom would immediately question our ethics and morals and the morality of our laws, creating way for these factors to be rewritten.

 

"In what state of health is the person who can commit suicide in, exactly? Are they truly in good health and thinking rationally?"

No one can know apart from the person who is decided on doing it. Who are you to say you know what is going on in the mind of someone completely different to you?

"Could it be possible for a completely healthy person to rationally decide that there are more cons than pros in being alive, and therefore decide to stop living"

Going from this, from experience the person has no reason to live anymore. Everything worth living for has been removed from their life, making their existence a pointless one.