I used to think yes but now I am not so sure.

I think it depends on if you have children or not. If you have a child you are responsible for then no, you lose that right to the child. When that child has grown into an adult and you have no more responsibility then you have the right.

For me; our children and thier welfare are the most important. To many corporate bankers money is thier first priority, thier kids come after (just thought I would slip that in )

Ask yourself this question. If mankind wasn't dumbed down, poisoned and socially engineered would so many people even consider suicide?

Who are you people to say what is right or wrong? You have no idea, a lot of you, on what it's like to be depressed. It's a constant state of negative. I would advise against it, but I would understand why someone would end their life.

You can do whatever you want to your own body but you can't crybaby about the ramifications of having done so. There's no get-out-of-feeling-like-a-piece-of-sh*t card in real life, and only really damaged people do exactly what they want, when they want, and to whomever they want, without feeling any impact from the reactions of other people.

If you really don't care, then whatever. God won't be there to kick you in the nuts when you cross over unless you conjure him up, but don't expect anything to be any better. It'll be different, but you'll still be you.

Then again, if you're feeling an overwhelming urge to hurt little kids or weaker people, then why not take one for the team and off yourself. Maybe the folks on the other side will throw you a welcome aboard party for preventing the hell you'd have otherwise inflicted on someone else. If I was over there and someone chose suicide instead of murder or worse, I'd greet them and make them feel appreciated. That'd be like jumping on a grenade for someone else, sort of.

My bad man, read it wrong. I agree that if you are planning to hurt others..........maybe it's the best.

No, I personally don't think suicide is a human right.

I think in most cases suicide is committed by someone who is incredibly selfish and self centered. Well, atleast by someone who gets easily caught in the moment, and lets their selfishness take over.

I'm sorry if I come across as offensive, but I've had experience with suicide within my family.

My mom almost comitted suicide a few years ago, and I found it very hard to forgive her since then. But since I cried so much, and because I love my mom so much, I couldn't help but forgive her eventually.

No, I don't think it is a human right. It was posted that "no one else owns me," but in fact, many people are invested in you. We have a responsibility to society to, if not make it better, at least not make it worse. Suicide is a slippery slope. When is it permissible? Those who want to commit it are not in their right mind to decide such a fateful act. The young person who saw their life as unbearable and that if they can't get a job and pay off their school loans would leave them little choice will find with time that such a thought was immature and unwarranted.

Suicide makes victims of our loved ones. Further, every suicide we hear of makes it easier to commit. Children of a suicide are more likely to commit it themselves. Society is diminished.

We desperately want to be islands, but we are not. Our lives, and our deaths, touch too many people to make it a willful act.

None of the above relies on a Christian outlook but it deserves to be noted that you did not grant yourself life, and you therefore have no right to end it.

Im not entirely convienced that everything can fit in to a box of either human rights or not human rights, suicide being one of thoes things.

Originally posted by petrus4

Originally posted by schlomo
I'm surprised by how many people say yes.

The Left in particular have largely been trained to define a human right as being anything which they want, irrespective of whether or not said desire is necessary for their actual survival, or socially beneficial. As a result, the integrity of the general concept of human rights, (and thus the concept's value) has become seriously corroded...which was, of course, the intent in the first place.

edit on 15-4-2012 by petrus4 because: (no reason given)

Very true (and I'm liking your posts here.) Free speech is a right. Free food is not. Why? Because if someone else has to provide your free food, you are making them a slave. Rand Paul makes that distinction about medical care being a right. He, an MD, says it is not. Why? Because if medical care is a right, you make doctors into slaves because you can require them to provide medical care for you. Is a walk in the park a "right"? Well, that straddles the line, doesn't it? If you demand someone else makes the park habitable for you--nature trails all ADA compatible, then No, because your "right" requires someone else to provide services to you.

On to suicide. Historically, no, it is not a "right." Remember that you don't make up rights all by yourself. Even free speech is a consensus right agreed to by the social group, in the case of the US, guaranteed by the Constitution. The Right to keep and bear arms is a hotly contested "right" because the Founding Fathers said it was, but a whole lot of people don't want that to be a right at all. Once again, it's group consensus that makes a right, not an individual claim.

And historically, the group has considered suicide a "sin" (or illegal, if you prefer) because your survival is valuable to the group and your leaving the group by your own hand puts the group at risk. As I understand it, in some cultures the suicide prohibition was enforced by sanctioning your family. If you committed suicide, they would be punished. As others have pointed out here, what can you do to a suicide? well, you can punish the family and refuse to bury you in hallowed ground. For people who believe "hallowed ground" is necessary to avoid Hell, that's a powerful incentive.

Even today, when your individual presence probably has little effect on group survival, suicide can still take a toll. Consider:

My wife committed suicide and left me with a 12 year old daughter to raise. This affected me economically. It affected me legally like you would not believe. It affected the extended family with a blow that was unrecoverable with all the emotions, blame, and guilt you would expect it to. Considering the circumstances and possibilities, it was absolutely the worst possible "stick a knife in your gut and twist" kind of thing she could possiby have done. It was calculated to cause the most disruption possible. It caused irreversible psychological harm to our daughter that she will carry for her entire life. I'd like to think I'm a tough guy, but I have dreams about her still that are so very real I can't tell the difference between them and reality. I keep dreaming she is back, and it's been nearly 20 years.

You really think people have a "right" to do what my wife did? She wasn't terminally ill. Things just weren't going her way and she was upset about it. She had an "excess of hubris." (See below) And so she did a very selfish thing which solved nothing. Think about that when you declare you have all these rights.

I think if someone is in such a terrible situation such as being a sex slave or something awful like that they have the right to run for their life and die trying, i know that some samurais hage been known to kill themselves with a sword after they felt they had dishonored their family. But to me, i think we need every human to contribute some happiness to the rest of us before their ticket is up. Taking the short road may be a right but its not THE right option. Theres always more to do until the last bell.

Yes suicide should be allow

It not a very easy task which you can easily fail and there not many option one have in doing the act.

Denying one death cause more harm then anything else.

I hear talk about the one they leave behind yet the one that are left behind are being self-es and not respectful to the one that want to leave the world.

Am against religion however religion does say one should be able to kill themselves yet religious book were rewrote to make it a sin.
(basically too many were killing themselves that religious factor decided to stop it by altering there text)

Suicide is a hard thing to commit, anyone that say it easy clearly never had tried.

I think there should be a system put up to make sure one really want to end things.
For example if 3 months have pass and they still want to die then help them to end it.

Sure, why not? As long as you don't harm other people, I don't think anyone really cares, except those that love you. I think it is pure stupidity, but then again people have a right to be stupid.

Pointless thread. So why is it the hottest topic and why am I contributing to it?

I might not believe in the idea of it but who am I to tell anyone what they can and can't do with their lives. I do feel that its a selfish act in leaving others to deal with your issues let alone your burial but really its your decision. I don't know that personally anything would be worth taking my life over other than I'm really old, in tremendous amounts of pain and on my death bed. It would then be selfish of anyone to expect me to keep on living in those conditions. But this is all in my opinion and not to lash out at anyone. Of course I've never really been to a point in where I could take my life. Been in situation at times where I've debated it but just couldn't see myself doing it.

Great thread and great responses by the way

Originally posted by ZikhaN
No, I personally don't think suicide is a human right.

I think in most cases suicide is committed by someone who is incredibly selfish and self centered. Well, atleast by someone who gets easily caught in the moment, and lets their selfishness take over.

I'm sorry if I come across as offensive, but I've had experience with suicide within my family.

My mom almost comitted suicide a few years ago, and I found it very hard to forgive her since then. But since I cried so much, and because I love my mom so much, I couldn't help but forgive her eventually.

If a person reaches the point of wanting to commit suicide, and they are not dying or very old, they are at a point where they are in so much mental anguish and pain that they can no longer see anything else.

The pain of a physical illness can be so bad that a person cannot think of their loved ones at that moment, and the mental pain is the same...or worse...they simply are hurting to much to remember anything else, how can anyone blame someone for that kind of pain.

I was there once I did not kill myself but I wanted to and I mentioned it aloud, and for that my daughter 18 at the time never forgave me. What does she know of losing a 22 year marriage and finding the one you loved totally and was loyal to always had a string of uncountable other women, just at the time when your kids have left home and you are all alone.

Anyway I wish for the very old and very sick they had a place like on the movie Soylent Green, where you could go to sleep in a wonderful peaceful way, the way we do for our beloved animal friends.