The Ultimate Question: To Choose to Live? Or Die?

The question of suicide is a question of a person. The world is as we perceive it and, therefore, suicide may be held in different lights under different peoples’ opinions. The Catholics, Christians, and the like believe that suicide is wrong; against God’s will. Others believe that they have a right to suicide as it involves the destruction of their own bodies. Still others will that suicide is a tunnel and death is the light at the end.

Suicidal people come in all shapes, sizes, and positions on the food chain. CEO’s and the homeless, doctors and gas pumpers, atheists and believers are all equal in death. There may be different circumstances for each passing but, in death, all people are, simply, dead.

Our legacies are composed of what others perceived us to be. Happy, sad, angry, frustrated with the world; by action and reaction, it seems, we are all defined by those around us. In theory, we live and we die. So why does it matter how we die? Because the people around us are left to deal with our decision.

To me, suicide is an act of selfishness. Sure, there are the “what if” scenarios like people who are terminally ill and in extreme pain; the people who literally have nothing in the world and no will to live; and the elderly who have nothing left to do but die. In those types of cases, I honestly think that suicide is the choice of the individual. If the burden lies solely with you, then take your own life if that’s what you think will make you feel better. But those of us that have roles to play in the world need to take a step back. In my opinion, what is more heart-shattering to a family than the knowledge that one of their loved ones; a son, a daughter, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, a cousin; was so unhappy with their lives that they decided they did not want to live them. It not only leaves the families with the usual air of sorrow that is common in the wake of death, but with feelings of ineptitude and longing. Why were they so stricken with sorrow? Why couldn’t they come to us? Why couldn’t we persuade them the other way? Why weren’t we good enough for them? All are questions that will never be fully answered.

I know that I haven’t addressed the mentally ill and others who believe in suicide as a religious or societal rite; so here it goes. The mentally ill should be assisted and regulated but, in the end, they make the decision to jump from the bridge, OD on drugs, or put the bullet in their brains and that’s that. Many who are suicidal have issues and just want the attention, but still want to live. Those that engage in “the permanent solution to a temporary problem” make their choices and for what holes they leave they may damage the world, but that’s how life goes for the rest of us. And, as for those people who are religious or believe in honor: honor’s all well and good and, if that works for your society, then I guess that’s your decision; but if you preach to the world about your merciful God who created life and loves it and is the ultimate supremacy, don’t kill yourself in “His” name. Death is human; therefore it is a human creation, opinion, and ultimate decision. And if you still believe in death in the name of a God, then just kill yourself, not others along with you.

I know what I’ve said may be offensive to many out there, but no one can have an opinion these days without being looked down upon from some school of thought. From western influence, suicide may be wrong, but in others it is right. For me, however, I love life and, even if I hated it, I could never take my life and inflict that pain on my family and those who care about me. And for me, that’s that.

Suicide is one of those topics that I personally do not like to talk about because the word itself is depressing to hear that someone would hurt themselves. Suicide is not for me, but I do not think that it is my place for my opinion to be mentioned. I have known a couple people that have committed suicide, and less than half of them have succeeded.

My grandmother was a very depressed lady. She was not a manic but self medicated all the time. She always lived close to us. One a lady called my parents when I was three telling them that she found her dead in her apartment. We were supposed to go and see her that day, because we had to take her to the doctor. She wanted my dad and I to find her.

I know I talk about Alexis Byrd a lot, but I needed myself to realize that she committed suicide. She was one of my best friends. She died in 9th grade from what the police called an “Accidental Overdose”. She had the attitude when she was getting wasted and lost in the drug abyss, and if she died along the way no one would care, according to her. She had no idea how many kids cared for her. She was the sweetest, most caring person I knew. She lived a very hard life of constantly moving around with her mother who was an alcoholic.

Both of these people have made a huge impact on my life. They both were great people and it sucks that they are gone but I could not have stopped them and it was their choice to end their lives.

I have seen what suicide has done to the people around the person who has succeeded, it can tear people apart. Its the same pain for the young and the old, but older people have had a life to live a young person is just at the beginning. So I think that it might be a little more depressing if a person under 20 commits suicide rather than a person who is 80 years old, because the 80 year old had a chance to have fun and explore.

I am not a person to put a value on a life.
I cannot decide whether or not I like the 72 hour hold or think that the law has a right to get involved with suicides because after the patient is out of the hold, they could just go to their house and kill themselves. Although, I do think that if the person can calm down enough and maybe sleep on it , they would not feel the need to kill themselves. I do not think that it is for people to decide if others should live or die because I do not have to live their lives.

“Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."-Phil Donahue The quote is not always true because cancer is not always a temporary problem. Sometimes mental illnesses are not always temporary either because people do have to live with them the rest of their lives. They never get a break from their depression or bipolar disorder.

I know that people may look down upon me for thinking all that I do but who are you to say that you can control someones life because you like and there will live in misery while you get to enjoy the fact that you get to choose the person being in misery. It is wrong for other people to be happy about putting others in misery.

Suicide is a personal choice that no one should been forbidden from. Everyone has many good reasons not to commit suicide; religion, family, fear, ect., but at the end of the day it is your choice to live tell tomorrow. Now one could argue that it is a sin to kill ones self, that you are stealing yourself from god and your family, but you should legally have the right to kill yourself by your own hand not matter what your age is. I do think though that the old and chronically ill have more right then the young and the health.

Two years ago my great grandfathers chose to die. He had cancer that we believe was brain but by the time it was found it had spread every where. It started out small just ‘spots’ but we knew that something was up. When we found out it was cancer he chose to not to take the medication that could potential save his life. My grandfather was a brave man that that served in world war two, he had family, friends, but he was 80, and secretly depressed. I and the rest of the family slowly watched him wither away; tell February 13 2008 we got the call. It was over after many months of long pain tell he was just a ‘head in a bed’. If he had been able to legally kill himself I believe he would have and I would have supported that decision. I still find his choice not to take the medication suicide but alright because it was his choice. Yes I am sad he is gone but a lot nobler then dying in pain and grasping the unattainable.

Last week my clinically depressed and suicidal friend left Foothill and went to Buena. He was being treated but no matter what medication they gave him he would have a few good days and then go and do something stupid and go suicidal. As of this moment I believe he is being held against his will in a treatment center. No matter what medication he has been given or who he had been forced to talk to he still wants to die. Yes you could continue this forced treatment for who knows how long but what quality of life he would have. In and out of rehab, contestant brain chemical imbalances, he would be happier dead. Yes I understand my view point is extreme so may even say that I don’t care about this friend, but I would let him die because I care about him.

I am not saying you should go kill yourself if you are ill or mental unstable. But if you really think your quality of life is that poor and nothing is going to help you, then you should legally be able to end your life. On the other hand if suicide was legal maybe more people would go try to receive help. Everyone is going to die. Weather my friends and family needs me to step back, sit with them in rehab, or support there decision I will be with there for them. It is there choice and no law of man or god should stand in the way of a personal decision.

When asking whether suicide is right or wrong, moral or immoral, or ethical or unethical, there will be varying responses. There are many different cultures and religions in the world today that have very conflicting beliefs on this controversial topic. Each and every religion, depending on how strict it is, has very confirmed and perpetual beliefs. There are no ‘what ifs’ when it comes to their belief, it is a one-sided answer. It is difficult to say, for me, whether suicide is completely right or wrong, seeing as it is a multifaceted problem. What if the person is terminally ill, depressed, mentally unstable or just a ‘normal’ person in today’s world? Does it make it right to permanently end your life based on your label in society?

If a person has a chronic condition or is a paraplegic and does not want to suffer or live life not being able to complete simple tasks such as brushing their teeth or walking, I think it is their decision to end their life if it makes them happy. A person should not have to suffer through pain and strife if they don’t want to. When it comes to a mentally ill patient who has ups and downs daily, they should be in therapy and watched on a daily basis. While it is unimaginable to me to think of killing yourself one day and being perfectly happy and content the next, many people struggle with it. There are serious conditions that should be monitored, but, ultimately, it is a persons choice if they want to die whether they are ill or healthy.

With that said it may insinuate that I am partially in favor of suicide. However it’s completely the opposite; I find it unnecessary and self-centered. It is unfathomable to me that a person could hate life so much that they would not want to live. I believe a person has the right to commit suicide and they should not be stopped if they so choose to end their life, but it’s undoubtedly selfish and a little overdramatic. How can a person want to end their life when they have so many people who love and care for them? Whether a person is a parent, spouse, sibling, cousin, or grandparent, they are affecting everyone who loves them with their decisions. How can they leave this earth with their loved ones wondering, “What happened” or “What could we have done to change this”? There is no answer to justify leaving behind the people who care about you.

I believe in living life to its fullest and doing what makes you happy. In my opinion, committing suicide is a completely selfish and cowardly act. However, if a person thinks they will be happier and better off in heaven, or whatever they believe in after death, it is their choice to end their life early. If a person is depressed on earth, I think they should have the right to make the fatal decision regardless of what other people think. Everyone in this world has gone through hard times and unwanted circumstances, but the majority pulls through and perseveres until their situations improve. I find it, as I have said before, selfish to commit suicide. People who commit this cowardly act are weak. There are always different approaches on life that can lead to better circumstances.

Suicide is a very complicated matter where its hard to take one side or the other. There are a countless number of what if scenarios to support both sides reasoning. What if a person is going to die soon of brain cancer so why not let them die on their own terms. Or when a person kills himself or herself what if it causes their whole family a lot of grief and forever alters their lives. Both scenarios support both pro suicide and anti suicide claims.
People have the notion that all people that want to or succeed in committing suicide are just giving up on life instead of fighting through the tough times. But for many of these people it’s not because they give up on life it’s because they have a mental illness that causes them to go in a depressive state. Wanting to kill themselves is just one of the symptoms to their disease. Which they might be able to cure themselves with through therapy.
In my mind killing yourself is a very cowardly and selfish thing to do. Not because I don’t think you should be able to end your own life but because of the negative affect it will put on everyone around you. Killing yourself might end all of your problems but it will only start problems for the people involved in your life. I think when people kill themselves because they have put themselves in such a financial hole that they can’t seem to find out they just choose the easy way out which is just killing yourself, instead of working hard to find another solution to get out of the situation. People seem to turn to suicide to quickly these days they need to look at all their possible options cause there is always a way out if you look hard enough.
If someone is trying to kill themselves I believe the police have the right to stop them. People shouldn’t be able to choose when they want to die because people aren’t disposable. You can’t replace a father in a young girls life or a husband or even a grandfather. One man who tried to kill himself and lived through it said right when he jumped off the building all his problems seem solvable. This shows that while suicide might sound like the right choice when someone is actually going through with it they can regret it because they realize that they are actually going to die. So if the police interfere and take them to counseling it could help them.
I choice not to address the terminally ill because I believe since are so many of those what if situations out there it is hard to wrap your mind around the whole situation.

Suicide, not something that ever really seems to pop up in everyday conversation. Yet we are still forced to deal with such an issue whether we want to or not. Everyday people commit suicide and well it is my personal opinion that it is their choice. As an outsider to that person's mind, we cannot truly comprehend what is going on. I cannot say that I condone suicide but I will not stop you if you wish to commit it yourself. During my life I have spent much time in the hospitals in rehab circles where people are very depressed and want to do things like suicide. Sure they were talked down from their temporary episode, but can you blame the person for wanting to. They went from a star athlete or a very prosperous person that loved physical activity, to a "head in a bed". They can no longer run, jump, and play; nor can they even brush there own teeth, so who are we to say you cannot take your own life. Some of these injured men and women have lost everything, so how is it that we can take one of the only things they have left, the choice whether they want to live or die. Also I feel that the police over step their boundaries when a man or a woman wishes to kill themselves. Even if their job is to save lives, why should they be able to save a person from their own destruction? Finally what is it about suicide that makes everyone feel all that much worse or makes others feel an abhorrence towards the persons death. They may have killed themselves but honor should still be paid to those deceased. Not a slew of slander or angry remarks. Those around whoever had committed suicide should feel a happiness for the deceased since they are now, I apologize for the cliche, "in a better place". Still suicide is a thing of distaste, why is that? I honestly cannot understand the distaste for it. It is a personal choice that people can make. Also this is a thing of honor for me due to my heritage. Not only was my great uncle a Kamikaze pilot, but I slightly revere Bushido (the way of the samurai). So suicide is also not a thing of disgrace for me due to that fact. I do not love the idea of killing yourself, but I understand that there are some situations that some people may want to commit the act.

The answer to whether suicide is right or wrong cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. The issue of taking ones life has multiple levels including the issues of religious and personal morals. The act of suicide was strongly looked down upon against Traditional Catholics. And in the more modern world, people who commit suicide are considered to be weak or cowardly. But the decision to take your own life cannot be based on others views because it is a very personal decision.

I cannot even imagine becoming so depressed that I would feel the urge to take my own life because I know that life has its ups and downs. But it is apparent that some people cannot see the good side to life and decide to end it all. I think in cases where people are so depressed that they have thoughts of killing themselves every day and they are so tired of living that they cannot get out of bed in the morning, they should have the right to end their own life. Nut only if the person has been depressed for many years and they have been actively trying to help themselves. If they have tried to get help and nothing has helped, what is the point of them living just because they have to? But I think that it is the government’s responsibility to intervene if an overdramatic teenage girl who just broke up with her boyfriend is threatening to kill herself. I think that this is acceptable because this is just a reaction to something that randomly happened and not an ongoing problem. In issues of terminally ill persons, I think that it 100% their chose whether or not they want to expand their lives, but if they chose to take their lives they should have the right to commit suicide.

I don’t think anyone should have the right to deny someone his or her right to die. Suicide is a very personal choice and in certain cases it should be intervened, but there are certain cases where it is expectable. Although I would never even consider suicide, I know people have and they will continue to. But it is important that, in certain situations, we respect their wishes to pull the trigger.

Suicide is a personal choice. Regardless of its legality or anything else, suicide is a choice that a person makes, either in the heat of the moment when things seem the worst possible, or in a long drawn out never improving fashion. It doesn’t matter if the government says you can or can’t take your own life, no ones actually going to put your dead body in a cell up in Folsom because you felt life wasn’t worth it anymore.

The right should be entirely yours. You’re the one that wakes up and lies in bed all day no urge to get up, the one who sees their life as one ominous shade of gray, and the one who no longer feels they even belong amongst the living. But once again, the government is there to not give you your own freedom of choice in life. If you attempt and don’t succeed in suicide, you most likely will wake up in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. Because the law says you can be held against your will for 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation.

Phil Donahue said ‘Suicide is a long term fix to a temporary problem.’ And that it is. There is the answer. In that one bullet, knife, or bottle of pills. There is the answer to all of your life problems a simple ‘final curtain call’ and your done.

This is where the complexities arrive. In terms of the young and the old, I can’t help but think about that old man Mr. Geib talked about who would go to UCLA’s ER simply to find someone to talk to because he was so utterly alone. It is sad. We try so hard in America to take care of everyone, and yet people still fall through the cracks.

Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter on if you are young or old, healthy or terminally ill. The simple fact is that you are a human being, and you have the right to make your own choices.
The only problem with this is what to do when the people are mentally unstable such as manic depressants. How to deal with someone who one minute wants to go run on green grass in the sun, and then 10 minutes later, lay in front of a train. It’s hard to say because while these people do have their freedom of choice (not legally though, thank you Government) it varies from time to time and is highly unstable. I think the answer to that is psychiatric help. To get the people in who have attempted, or will attempt, offer them the help available, if they want it. Let them see that people do care. Then, if they still want to kill themselves, after seeing out all resources available to them, then let it be.

That is the only thing that you can do. Why force someone to live if it just continues to make him or her unhappy? Let them get help, stabilize to make their own decisions, and then stop forcing your choices on them.

While I don’t think suicide is ever the answer, that there is always help and another way to combat the terrible enemy that is mental illness, I do see where people find comfort in just ending it all. It is a sad, but true fact that suicide does effect more than just the people that take their own lives, just like untimely deaths (car accidents, plane crashes, accidental overdosing) it is a simple fact of life that is unavoidable.

The act of suicide is a complicated moral dilemma. Determining if it is right or wrong is based on the situation at hand. There are times where suicide can be a selfish mistake, and there are times where it can be an ideal way of dying. There are many different forms of suicide and ideas on them, whether it is because of a teenage breakup, a mental illness, or a choice because of a terminal sickness.
When teenagers kill themselves because of breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, it is selfish and stupid. The kid probably wants someone to feel sorry for them or wants the one who broke up with them to feel guilty. They are all built up in a moment of depression because of the breakup, they forget their sense. They should be stopped and taken care of. Therapies and medicine are available to help. After a while the individual should be fine. The quote by Phil Donahue, “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem” explains this situation. Suicide does not have to be done, there are ways around it. Just relax and settle down to think. Isn’t that why drugs where made?

Most of the time, suicide is performed by the mentally ill. If a person who is mentally ill wants to kill themselves, then they should be stopped. The law should be there to protect people like this. If the person was in their right mind, they would not attempt suicide. They probably forgot a dose of their medication and went crazy. Mentally ill people should be protected like they are in triage; a mentally ill person is considered an implied consent when a rescuer arrives. They law should follow this form and stop them from taking their life away.
If a pet is dying and has to suffer intense pain, the owner puts the dog to sleep. Of course the owner gets sad, but they know it is the humane thing to do. The same should go for euthanasia laws. If a person is dying of super cancer and will only last a few more days, they should have the right to ask the doctor to pump them with morphine to fall asleep and die peacefully. The person’s family will be greatly affected but if the person was to die anyways, why not let them choose what they feel is best for them? There should be no law against this form of death if it is in this type of situation. It seems as though restricting this right is cruel. If religious people are against this form of death, then they do not have to have it. It should be the choice of the individual.
To conclude, suicide is both right and wrong. It all depends on how and why it is done. It can probably never be stopped because it is a personal choice. All someone can do is have their own thoughts and opinions.

Life is a gift, a precious gift given to each and every one of us. Now I understand life gets hard and seems unbearable at times, whether we are faced with a break up, divorce, or just not feeling like getting out of bed. As teenagers we all have our own natural highs and lows just trying to live life as we know it. Suicide is one of the leading deaths of teenagers, besides car accidents of course. To me suicide is a way of being selfish and lazy. I say selfish because you leave everyone behind. Especially the ones who loved you the most. Its selfish because you leave the pieces for everyone else to pick up, not only do others have to cope with the death, they also have to live with the fact that he/she wasn’t living a happy life. I think suicide is being lazy because life is a fight (not the physical kind), and you have to fight to make it to the end, you have to fight to get into a college, to get a well rounded job, and to be where you want to be in life. Committing suicide to me is a declaration that they are too lazy to fight the fight and make life what you want it to be. Now I am not speaking about the mentally ill, just those who decide to quit. I believe it is God’s decision when it is someone’s time to go. We don’t have the right to play that role. And I do understand that some people have very complicated lives, but to me that still is not a good enough reason to end life as they know it, because at the end of every tunnel there is a light and not the kind that signifies the end of life. But one that symbolizes hope and that if they can persevere then they can make it through their troubles. Life is what you make it, and committing suicide doesn’t make your life anything, you just wiggle out of an opportunity that could change your life and make it better.
Those who want to commit suicide and are mentally ill are another whole other box of chocolates. Because no matter what doctors do and no matter how many different kinds of prescriptions are written, they still will feel like there is no point of life. But I still don’t agree with doctors in Oregon and other states that give them an overdosed prescription to help them commit suicide. To me that makes the doctors almost like a murderer. This contradicts the Hippocratic Oath. Also asking for an overdose prescription is another form of giving up, I understand that the situation they are in is not entirely their fault. But many lead themselves to that stage because of choices they have made in the past.

I believe all of life is a choice. There are good decisions and there are the bad. There are the sensible individuals and there are the ones without a clue. There is ambitiousness for success, and lack there of for failure…and the list goes on. With few exceptions, we are all individuals. We all have choices. To each his own.
Personally, you will never see me strutting down hallways in a pair of lime green crocs, but I see my neighbor Tina rocking them like there’s no tomorrow. You will also never see me ever question taking my life, but you hear it on the news, more often than not, about the teenage girl who did.
Just like you decide what pair of shoes to put on each day, hideous or not, there is another person contemplating their life, worthy or worthless. Obviously feet accessories do not equate to a human life, but it is a perfect example of simple choices present on a daily basis. Suicide is one of those choices. There is no constant surveillance to prevent it or to stop the process. The only one truly stopping you, is you.
Though I thoroughly believe suicide is a personal choice, I do not think it should be encouraged. I believe media portrayal is problematic in the way it glamorizes demise. I promise, there is nothing glamorous, shiny, sparkly, or vogue about death. If it was, the grim reaper would probably look more like Paris Hilton in Dolce and Gabanna, but it certainly does not. Death is death, it is permanent, and there is nothing ‘hot’ about it.
On the other side of the spectrum, I think it’s a little silly that suicide is illegal. Once you are gone, you’re gone. Are they going to handcuff your corpse or what? Once a person is in a mindset of ending there existence, I doubt the last thing on their mind would be “omg, what law am I breaking?” I think it is right as a society to frown upon suicidal action, and put the effort toward the alternatives instead. All measures should be taken for help, because sometimes a little support or maybe a friend can override any dosage of an anti-depressant. Focus should be placed on family, and life, and things one should be enjoying. Life is a beautiful thing and should be celebrated. But in the end, all what if’s and situational morality pushed aside, nobody knows you better than you do. As we hear repetitiously each day, ‘the choice is yours’.

Suicide: The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself, as defined in the dictionary. Most people would define suicide as a permante fix to a temperary problem. Suicide is a temperary fix it is aften following a break up from a relationship or maybe a lose of a job. the fact is there are more then 30,000 suicides per year in the United States. Its the 8th leading cause of death. Suicide is a problem promting many heart broken young kids. Part of the problem is that suicide is not illeagel. they will detain you for it but it was your decison and it does not affect other people personaly. It only affects people that are close to you. Suicide is the same wether you are 10 or 100 it doesnt matter suicide is wrong, but it is your own life. If other people controlled your life then you would the same as the people in the book 1984. You would be controled, you would have no rights. Which your rights do not say that you are not allowed to take your own life, it says not to do harm onto others but it doesnt say you cant kill yourself.

Im not here to say that suicide is a good thing im just saying that it is your own choice and if you want to then you should have that right to. I mean if god put us on this planet and he intended us to do what he wants and then leave then I think that people should have the right if they think its time and god does to then why not? People have the right to it by not having a law against it. The people that actually go ahead with it and see it through to the last poosible moment and then they kill themselves, then they know that their life is not worth the time and energy to keep it going. I do not think that it is permissible I think that it should be accepted by the greater whole but i dont think people should just do it. But then again i do believe that people should chose if they want to and that people should understand that and let it happen.

In closing i believe that is is our right to chose what we do to our bodys and if we feel that dieing is the only option then so be it. Let us not stop what is to happen, let us be with that person in hopes they might change but not to stop them.

An individual who takes his own life is also imposing suffering upon all those who were involved with his or her life, which in a way is everyone. Thich Nhat Hahn often talks about “interbeing”, where all aspects of life are connected and one. Since a human is not merely a defined product of self, but rather a collection of generations and elements, than the act of killing oneself is the same as killing another. The two are both morally wrong and cause unnecessary suffering in a world already devastated by violence and misunderstanding.
It is difficult to comprehend the multitude of influences in each individual’s life, for every person has different experiences, perceptions and attitudes that compile and catalyze emotion. Will I ever know that the degree of my suffering or pleasure is the same as my friends, for as the age old philosophical debate goes, I can only be assured of my own existence, and furthermore, all things are relative. Yet, this is surely not a world defined by philosophical or scientific proofs, which in essence are designed to evaluate the truth. Who can say what is truth, for what is true for one person may be different for another, thus bringing the frustrating paradox of emotion, the spark and heart of suicide.
The glorification of suicide throughout literature is the radical’s interpretation of life and love. It is human and divine to exhibit emotion; this is the product a conscious reaction to our spiritual environment as well as a critical difference between Homo-sapiens and animals. Therefore, it is natural for some beings to be consumed with profound emotion. This is, after all, the mark of intelligent life.
To commit suicide in a state of terminal illness is acceptable. This individual would be motivated by extreme pain, and his or her family may be suffering due to this. Additionally, this is not something that should be addressed by government because it is a complex personal issue, similar to abortion or marriage.
Ultimately, suicide can be seen as a sign of life, since these individuals are experiencing acute emotions and aren’t numb to the overwhelming quantity of suffering of others. Unfortunately, suicide is a somewhat passive solution in my opinion. It is perhaps easier to kill oneself than to spread euphoria or joy to society. There are certainly plenty of examples of people who can sense the suffering of civilization and work to bring about peace and change.
Suicide is wrong because of its recklessness and inconsideration.

Quite frankly I believe that suicide is not a reasonable answer to any problem no matter how severe. My religious backings have established a strong moral sense against suicide, and further more I agree with my religion completely on this topic. People tend to kill themselves because they think that the problems they have are just to big, to much for them to handle, over there head. I believe this not to be true. In the bible it talks about God never giving us too much to handle, he only puts on us burdens that we are capable of handling. The situation may seem like a huge deal at the time but often looking back on these situations you can see that suicide would have been a very rash and ignorant decision. Not only does suicide not solve your problem, it also places your problems on others. People that are close to you and love you will be drastically affected by your suicide. So in a sense it is very selfish of you to even consider the option of suicide because you are talking something away from everyone else that knows you or is linked to you. It also does not solve your personal problem, you would only use suicide as a personal escape you are not solving anything. It is taking your own life because you cannot face your problems. So by never facing your problems and running away from them you are never solving your problems. So I do not believe an individual has the right to take their own life because it is a coward’s way out, and because it affects everyone involved with this person. In my opinion suicide is just impermissible because we were all given a life to go out and live it no matter how bad it is until we die; it is not our duty to take our own life away, it is our job to take that life and live it to the fullest potential possible.
I believe that suicide no matter what your age is or what your medical condition may be is still not excusable. People live and die they should follow the chain of life and not determine that they are too old to live, or that their life is full already themselves. Even patients with a chronic illness should not commit suicide. This is because by them committing suicide they are leaving a bad emotional state towards the world for those they left behind in death. If they decide to face the end with courage and except that they are going to die from their illness then their family can respect that, remember it, and learn from it. If they commit suicide what would their family think of them and learn from it? If this happens then their family learns not to face death or a tough situation with courage. To go on top of this if a person commits suicide it will mess up the psychological well being of the people they were close to most likely. Those people will wonder why they did it. What was wrong with them? What were there reasons for doing this? Was life really that unbearable?

I still remember my reaction after reading the ending of Romeo and Juliet during freshman year. After Romeo was already dead and Juliet committed suicide, to me it seemed like a waste of a young life that was filled with struggle but still had the potential to overcome that struggle, if Juliet ever gave her life another chance. It was a tragedy because everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong but in my opinion both Romeo's decision to commit suicide when he thought Juliet was dead and Juliet's decision to commit suicide when she knew Romeo was dead were decisions made in the haste of the moment and without thinking about what was possible in the future. Suicide most of the time is a "permanent solution to a temporary problem," and in Romeo and Juliet's case, if anyone had stopped to really think about the situation during the last scenes of the play, the ending might have been completely different.

There is no right answer to whether suicide is right or wrong: everything depends on the situation. If a terminally ill patient wants to end their life without having to wait until their quality of life goes completely downhill, then it should be their right to make that decision, in the same way that it is a person's right to refuse medical treatment if they do not want it. It is not fair as a society to tell someone with a terminal cancer that they must go on living if a majority of people in that society have never experienced the symptoms of a slow death that come with the later stages of cancer. It is difficult to pass a judgment on a person for trying to commit suicide without experiencing the events in that person's life that led up to their desire to commit suicide in the first place. It is true that everyone who commits suicide is struggling for one reason or another, whether it is with mental illness, depression, heartbreak, anger, frustration, or any other emotional issue that prevents them from living life normally.

In the United States, there is the mentality that if a person who is about to commit suicide is able to stop, even for a minute, to think about the consequences of what they are about to do, they will probably decide not to follow through with the suicide attempt. For the most part that is true but for some people who are certain that they do not want to be alive for another day, being forced to stay alive is a punishment and keeps them constantly miserable. It should be their right to end their own life if they are positive that that is what they want to do and are able to see all the consequences that will come with suicide, but it is almost impossible to know if that person really does want to commit suicide or if they would be grateful later on for being prevented from committing suicide because it gave them a chance at a new life. Committing suicide is always a choice but the effects of choosing to commit suicide are permanent.

Life is a gift.

Out of millions of eggs in your mother’s uterus, you were chosen to have a chance. All the sperm cells racing to that egg, you got there first. You were given the chance to live. Millions of other eggs were not. They were ejected and forgotten. They were never loved, never learned, never felt happiness or joy; they never had the chance to live. You did.

Your family grew and raised you since you were barely human. Your parents spent long nights holding you as you cried yourself to sleep, fed you as you sucked your mothers breast, taught and lectured you into who you are today. Even if they weren’t the most responsible or best parents a kid could wish for, they still brought you into this world and you owe them your gratitude for being alive.

Your friends are always there for you. They grew with you, and relate to you, and in some ways know more about you than your parents do. They love you and provide you company in the world that we all, as a generation will inherit. They care about you.

By committing suicide you have made the most self centered, weak, vulgar, and the stupidest decision that one could ever make. You basically waste the gift of live, you throw away all the time and love your parents have given you, you abandon your friends and your responsibilities in this world, all because you give up.

Humans are special. We are different than every other creature in the world. We were given capabilities that few creatures receive. To waste them all for your own sake is unimaginable. No one should kill themselves. However I believe that despite it being the worst act that you could possibly do. No one can tell a human being what they can do with his or her own body; all that we can do is help. No living human being is perfect, and I highly doubt anyone was. We all learn the hard way. Sometimes one needs to discover the lesson the hard way.

Realistically, the right to die is the only right that anyone is naturally granted. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as nice as they are, are all synthetic and are all too often taken away. Death, on the other hand, is a right that everyone utilizes at some point, and that no one should have the right to take away.
I’m not going to lie, in some artists I feel that I respect them more for killing themselves. It may be the effects of Romeo and Juliet romanticizing it for me, but I feel that it validates the artists works. It proves that Cobain wasn’t just faking it for the money or that Van Gogh truly was pouring his heart into painting. I feel like suicide has a time and a place.
I don’t want to promote suicide, but I’ve always thought that “a permanent solution to a temporary problem” is a stupid quote. No shit it’s a permanent solution, but it solves a lot of other problems too (unless the monotheists are right, then you’re bummed). You don’t have to worry about ever getting cancer or watching your weight. You’re plans for the future or earning a living are no longer issues. If you’re going to make a saying to prevent suicides at least be a little cleverer than that.
In the end were all just floating in the great toilet bowl of life, and if someone wants to swim ahead and find out what is on the other side of the pipe its up to them, but we’ll all get there eventually

To be or not to be? That is the clichéd saying that defines all of our lives. You might not believe this but all of you have to the ability to just quit. Stop doing your homework, going to school, talking to friends and family, etc. But you wouldn’t do that…

Or would you? It is difficult to say because modern western society puts an enormous stigma on the idea of suicide. Mentally ill patients would rather suffer than seek help. Teenage girls self-mutilate but hide it under long sleeve shirts and pants. They would be labeled crazy if they asked for help. Only the most unstable, irrational, or just plain persistent cases actually finish the deed. Most just hide and continue to lead lives of quiet desperation.

All of this being said, suicide should not be allowed. The problem is that suicide is not painless. It is not just ending your own life, it affects anyone around you. It is a selfish coward matter that leaves all your problems for someone else to burden. Is that fair?

Early in my rookie summer as a lifeguard, the entire beach went on suicide alert. Someone had left a note saying that they were going to end their life at Ventura State Beach. Everyone received a description and protocol to detain/intervene in the most irreversible decision. I was scared, what if I had to find the guy? I was only sixteen…I cannot deal with someone shot in the head. Minutes felt like hours as I scanned the water and surrounding hours. Not only was I supposed to watch the swimmers but also try and find the, needle in the haystack, potential victim of himself. I don’t think putting this guy in handcuffs would be the best possible action, but I definitely was not going to stand by and watch him die. It is the job/goal of society to protect life. He was found late in the afternoon with weights zip-tied around his wrists, intending on jumping off the pier.

Luckily, someone identify him and now he is happily sitting in a psyche ward. Typical happily ever after? No, but no one died and that is what is important. I do not want to play the hypothetical game, but was it right to have detained him? What about other ill patients who just want to end it all, or the patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease? For those who do not know, Lou Gehrig’s disease is a crippling disease where it slowly debilitates the function in your extremities toward your core. It is a heart-breaking affliction. Why can’t a patient who does not want to be in a wheelchair, end his life early?

Japanese Shintoist society about honor and suicide are noteworthy. But, the heartache to the families that the captured soldier left behind is incalculable. They probably would care more if he came back shamed, then dead honorably. Maybe, I do not value traditional Japanese values.

Overall, I could never commit suicide. It would break my family and friends hearts. I would not want to put anyone through that. If it ever came down to it, where I had no options left, I would take all money and fly to a remote country and start anew.

Suicide: this single word sends chills down my spine, reminds me of a dark time in my life and ultimately an action I disagree with. I am not going to pretend to be all knowing on the subject, because I am not. However, I was forced to deal with severe depression for a period of around five months; a period that felt like being trapped in a cave, in painful solitude, and because I am not a religious person, no “light” at the end of this [endless] tunnel: just an endless nothing.

I believe it was something I saw that made me doubt humanity, it made me doubt it so much I had no desire to be considered a human myself. After trying to cope with it, my brother, who was so close to me, moved away from home into the bliss of college life. I was jealous, envious, angry, and sad. I could not focus on the happiness he would experience while he was away because my depression had begun to envelop me, clouding my mind and sucking the drive out of my heart to keep me thriving. I didn’t see the point in anything: eating, driving, school, friends and exercising. I would lie in bed all day only to be tortured by racing thoughts that prevented me from dozing off to sleep at night and away from the reality that I had grown to find horribly unbearable. It was like I was being forced to face my problems, except for the fact that I didn’t have any understandable ones. It’s not like I thought I was fat, or ugly. No one close to me had died. But the worst feeling of all is that I was sure no one would understand how I felt. I felt alone. The worst feeling in the world.

However, my depression would turn itself on and off. It is what doctors would describe as a manic phase except I did not feel a high, I just felt back to an “almost me.” I could get by, I could work, and I could hang out with friends. Life would be OK but OK only. Then during the month of July in the year 2008 I plummeted to the darkest depths of depression, a state of mind that was so overwhelming, so saddening, so hopeless it was impossible to make better.

When I wanted to kill myself, I knew there would be nothing better waiting for me; neither heaven nor hell, but simply nothing. This is my belief and it has remained my belief to this day. So why then did I want to die? It is complicated, but the simple answer is this: I had such little desire to live life that nothing sounded like it could be better. I wouldn’t have to struggle to get out of bed; I wouldn’t have to try my hardest to pay attention to simple tasks and most of all I wouldn’t have to deal with being depressed. I couldn’t even believe that my “problem” could be considered temporary and that I had to come up with a permanent solution.

As I lay on my couch, neither asleep nor awake, I decided I would consume as much Xanax as I could find in my parents’ bathroom as I thought I would be alone in a matter of minutes. However, my mother said to get dressed because I was going with her to the store. She knew I couldn’t be left by myself. She knew that I had the potential of doing something horrible.

I refused to get up. I told her I wished I was dead. The next thing I knew, I was on my way to Vista Del Mar, a psychiatric/drug rehabilitation center. It was a “drastic move,” my therapist had told me after my mom frantically called her. But even though I had almost given up, my mom made me realize she never would. I was checked in, and since I had been checked in voluntarily I left the next afternoon. Vista Del Mar is a place to keep you safe from yourself, not to make you feel better instantaneously. It wasn’t for me.

But it made me come to the realization that I didn’t have to be sad, that I could be prescribed medications to regulate my serotonin and allow more of the neurotransmitter to cross the synapses within my brain. Depression is a medical condition, one that makes one feel nothing but sadness and painful solitude. But fear of an eminent and painful death is a different deal.

Someone who is faced with a terminal disease should have two options: facing the pain and dying when the time comes or ending your life a few weeks sooner to bypass the agony that often occurs in the final stages of a terminal illness. These options are fair and considerate of the individual’s unfortunate and incurable pain. Assisted suicide in this case is still difficult to deal with, but should be acceptable.

However, most suicide is a selfish act. As I had become more comfortable with telling people that I had been suicidal I had a variety of reactions. People told me to come to them if I was thinking of doing something stupid, others would look shocked as I am considered to be a happy person and some said they were glad that I didn’t do such a horrible thing to myself. Regardless of who you are you have people that would be traumatized by your intentional and selfish act of suicide. Parents would become depressed as they would blame themselves while friends would begin to lose hope in life. Sadness like an earthquake would erupt across all those who cared for you. What if you have no one? Bullshit. Everyone has someone and if you do not know who that person is who will care for you or who will talk you out of doing such a horrible thing, then do one last thing and find them. Humans have been given life, now make the best of it and maybe one day you will find happiness.

Suicide is seen by people in many different aspects. Some believe that suicide is in your own hands and you have the choice to think it is right or wrong. Suicide is the individual’s choice whether or not they would like to live or not and they should not be told not to be allowed to do it. Those who are very religious like the Christians or Catholics believe that suicide is against their morals. They believe it is merely wrong and against gods will to take your own life. In the Catholic Church, if one commits such treachery they will not be buried in the cemetery.

In my opinion suicide is a difficult decision one must bring upon themselves. I feel that many do it to gain some sense of relief that someone is giving them attention for once. Why would you feel the need to take your own life when there are people around you who care for you? Unless, as in some circumstances when an individual has no family, friends, or anything to live for, I do have much sympathy for them. I do not believe they should kill themselves even though they feel they have no purpose because everyone has a purpose in life. No one is born into this world without something they can bring to the table. In one point of every person’s life there will be sadness, depression, disappointment, or even heartbreak. You would not want to hear that your sister , brother, aunt or uncle just commit suicide due to the fact that they felt they had no will to live any longer. How would that make you feel inside? Shouldn’t they have come to one of the family members and explained their depression and need of help? Why did they not seek help? If it was me I would feel as though it was my fault that their life was so unhappy and unfulfilling, and that I could have done something to make their life more positive and inspirational. I would continuously question myself knowing that I could have stepped up to the plate and let them know that everything was going to be fine and that their life was going to improve each day.

Those who have these tragic thoughts of hurting themselves I believe should look for help first. There are so many people out there who can help you in situations as crucial as this. I understand that in some cases people have a mental illness, but they should always reach out for help and be assisted to improve daily. If after all the help they still feel that they don’t want to be on this planet anymore, then they have their choice of risking their own life. Many suicidal victims never realize that the harm they do to themselves they are doing to someone else also.

When it comes to the young and the old it is debatable. Young people have so much more life ahead of them they shouldn’t want to stop it short. What at such a young age could already be making them feel so down? Many young people get in their head that life is so horrible and difficult because they have what, to many school assignments. Life cant and shouldn’t be looked at in such a dark and fearful way at such a young period of time in your life. Not saying that it should when your older either, but young people have barely experienced anything in life, they should feel they have so much to look forward to. Older people I feel should be given the choice to take their life only if they have a significant disease that is causing them more pain than death or if a machine is what is keeping them alive. No one should have to suffer more than they already do.

Overall one should be aloud to decide their fate and not be told otherwise. But they should look for help first and then make that decision. There are many people who are able to help and cure.

Suicide is a topic which many people have different opinions about. It is a complex issue because there are those who believe that it is their life and that they can end it if it is what they desire. There are also the people that believe life is a gift, given to us by a higher power, and that we should not take it because it is not our time to leave the earth.

I believe that life is a precious gift and that it isn’t up to us at all whether or not we can wish to stop living. Although life may seem hard at times and that there is no escape from the current situation, there always is a better time waiting ahead. I don’t think that it is alright to end your own life when there is so much that life has in store for you. We all have a purpose in life, and if we end it early, we will deprive the world of the gifts that we have to offer. The way I see it, committing suicide is murder; you are robbing yourself of your own life and not allowing others to experience your good qualities. Not to mention, suicide is a very selfish act. In addition to doing permanent harm to yourself, you hurt others around you in a way that they will probably never be able to recover from; they will always carry the scars that you gave them. To take your own life hurts the people around you to such an extent there is irreversible damage. Although I have never experienced this pain, I do know people who have, and it is something that they will never be able to get over.

My views are the same for the young and old. Young people have so much to offer to society in the future because of their gifts. Old people have helped society benefit from their gifts, but now have to share their wisdom from their experiences with the younger generation so that they can learn. It’s a relationship, between the young and the old, that is very important. The young learn from the old and the old benefit from the young people’s work. Neither age group should take their life because the other has so much to gain.

With healthy and the sick, it’s a little bit more of a sticky situation. Obviously, healthy people have no reason to be taking their own life. Sick people are a different story, however. If someone has a terminal illness, some people argue why not let them take their life to prevent two more weeks of incredible suffering. First off, I have to say that I believe in miracles; there are some things which science can just not explain no matter how much it wants to. Who knows, maybe there will be a divine intervention and they will be cured, or even they will not have as much pain in the end as they thought they would. If someone is sick and dying, they should continue to live until their natural end because it shows their family that they were a strong person and that they wanted to enjoy their family for as long as they could. It shows their family that they are important and that they aren’t afraid of pain. Pain is temporary, and if they demonstrate this to their family, it shows that they didn’t take the easy way out, that they are a fighter.

All in all, I think that suicide is wrong on all levels. It is never permissible because there is always more to live for. I feel that it is sinful and murder. Like we discussed in class, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. One day we all will die, but it isn’t up to us to decide when this will be.

Suicide is a selfish waste. We each have one life, and no matter how much it may suck, we never know for certain if death and what comes after (if anything) will be worse than what we suffered in life, so why not live it out until its natural end? However, I also believe that each person’s life is in their own hands, and that you cannot force a person to live if they demand to die. That’s not to say that if I see someone standing on the edge of a bridge preparing to jump I won’t try to talk them down, because my conscious would never allow me to passively watch as someone made what could possibly be the worst (and last) mistake of their life. I would want them to think it through again and again, and hopefully to choose to stick out their problems and not resort to ending their life; I know that I would wish someone to do the same for me if I were the one atop the bridge. I distinctly recall watching a television special about survivors of suicide attempts and one man who survived jumping off a bridge saying “As I was falling, I realized that the only thing wrong with my life was that I had just jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

I mentioned before that I view suicide as selfish. This is because (as some of my classmates have said before me) it impacts not only the person who takes their life, but all those connected to that person. I have a close friend whose neighbor hung himself. I will never forget the phone call I received from that friend after she opened her front door only to see her neighbor hanging dead from a noose attached to the roof of his garage. It made my heart go out not only to her for having to witness such a horrible scene, and she had only spoken to the man once in her life, but to that man’s family (for he had a wife and two children). Just imagine if your own father were to hang himself in your garage with the door open for all the world to see!? Also, I have had several people tell me that they were going to kill themselves, or that they were having thoughts of suicide. On a selfish level, it put me in a horrible position. After they shared this with me, it put me in the position of having to decide what to do next. I spent hours on the phone with them as they sobbed, sometimes over things so trivial in the big picture of life that it shocked me, and sometimes over things so large that I cried along with them as I tried to make them see reason. None of these people ended up killing themselves, thank goodness, but just imagine what it would have done to those around them if they had.

In the area of suicide for those who have untreatable and painful terminal diseases, my view alters slightly. I believe that they should certainly have the option of assisted suicide. The problem in this area of the suicide dilemma for me, arrives in who carries out the procedure to end the patient’s life. Though I support this option, I know that I could never be capable of ending a person’s life, no matter how right I thought it was. My mother is a doctor, and she has the same view on this topic as I do, yet she too said that she could never give a lethal injection. No one should be forced to die an inevitable, slow, and excruciatingly painful death if another option is out there.

As much as I hate the waste of life involved in suicide, I do ultimately believe it is an individuals choice, however it is fact that it is selfish and does impact those around the person who takes their own life, especially if they involve others by telling them of their plan to end their own life, or take their life in a very public way. It seems cowardly to me, except in the case of painful terminal diseases, and I cannot see why most people don’t share my view that it is better to live life through to its natural duration than to intentionally cut it short. I do believe that there is truth to the saying, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

When it comes to the topic of suicide I become entirely hypocritical. And like politics and religion it is not a conversation to have with mixed company. I would be devastated if anyone close to me were to commit suicide yet I used to be the one who would attempt on an almost monthly basis a few years back.

Freshman year was definitely the most difficult time of my life. I did not have problems with my school work and I was financially stable. I had a boyfriend that my family detested and I know for a fact that if they hadn’t frowned upon it so much I would not have stayed with him so long. I was in the marching band and drum line at Buena, which was a dysfunctional family that I chose. My big sister was in the band and acted like she was my evil step mother like in the story book tales. My best friend, who was also in the band, was a sponge who would suck up and destroy all possible happiness in a 50-foot radius. My dad and my older sister would put me down in every which way they could think of, my boyfriend was cheating on me with my best friend, and my self esteem was microscopic.

I have always had low self esteem. No matter what I did there was always a flaw yet everyone around me was flawless. I was emotionally, socially, and chemically unstable in freshman year and turned to self destructive actions of every nature. I attempted multiple times but obviously never succeeded. I could not stand to live the life that I was living. After so many failed/interrupted attempts I decided to change my life instead of running away from the things that I loathed so much. I broke up with my boyfriend, I now consider my best friend as lower than a acquaintance, I left band, and it’s taken years but the relationship between my dad, my sister and I has improved, and I am taking medication and vitamins that help keep my hormones level and keep my anxiety in check.

I am not religious and I have never been religious. There were no Gods to save me; there was no hell to condemn me. There was simply nothing after life. I learned through my battles against myself that there was way more life for me to live before I get eaten by worms.

People should be able to live their lives the way they want to live. They should also be able to die the way they wish to die, whether it is natural, by their own hand, or by fighting for their country. I find it rather interesting that in England, suicides were legally criminal if sane, but not if judged to have been mentally deranged. The criminal ones were given degrading burial in roadways until 1823. I feel the same way. If you are sane and a normal person on most days but just happened to fall off the wagon you should be able to be protected from yourself. If you are not of mental stability you should be offered help but you may turn it down. This is the most grey of areas for me. I think in most cases of suicide are wrong and that life is a wonderful and everyone should be able to see all of its beauties but I also cannot see what the person was thinking before they took their own life and there is no way I will ever find out.

Overcoming suicidal tendencies is a battle that most have to fight on their own terms. Throughout my freshman year my family would try and 'help' me and try to fix things but it couldn't be fixed because I needed to do the fixing, not them. You have to want to be helped to be helped; you have to want to live to live.

Suicide is a tough issue, which many try to keep out of their daily discussions. The fact is that suicide is a reality, and there are many who think about it ever day, sometimes every hour, minute or second. The problem is who, if anyone at all, should step in and help these individuals?
I believe that though there are those selected few who are trying to be attention grabbers, many who attempt suicide are really looking for a way out of there situation. Being an alcoholic, I can relate because, I felt comfort in the ability to be able to get out of the “real world” and create my own world of bliss and serenity. Therefore, I can relate 100% to those who feel the urge to run, get away, and never come back again.
On the other hand, I can relate to many spiritual people who say that suicide is a sin or God put us on the earth, let him take you off when he is ready. But really I see it as, God has a plan for us, and for a few his plan is for them to commit suicide. I believe that if someone attempts suicide, but the person does not die, then it is not your time to go.
God has a plan for everyone; he has mapped out every road there is to take, at any given time for you. What I do not understand is why suicide should be different then any other type of death? Relatives, and friends of those who commit suicide usually feel angry, or upset at the dead loved one, but really was it not just their time to go?
I see life as, what is meant to be will be… truly. Therefore, I do believe that government, and others should interfere with suicide, because that is what has already taken place. Should terminally ill be able to end there life? Well yes, in Oregon and Washington, because that’s where God premises it to happen.
Death happens, and however it happens is the way it was suppose too. Why does God let some commit suicide? Well … why does God let some die in a car crash, or others from natural causes and old age? It is because that is what he intended for us. Therefore, I do not think there is shame in suicide, or joy in suicide either, there is just the path that you are suppose to follow and an ending that is different for everyone.

I have never been a particularly religious man, yet if there is one thing that puts me into an almost fanatical anger it is the idea of suicide (and also it’s a bitch to spell..). A person choosing to voluntarily end their own life, their life being all that they have ever known or comprehended, their very essence as a being in existence…perhaps for a self justified reason or maybe just in the heat of passion. Maybe its just me (hha..) but something about that inherently bugs me. I do not believe that life is precious for any religious reasons, but rather for a reason much more significant (In my own humble opinion) than religion could ever properly credit; life is sacred because it is all that we have and will ever have. I can rationalize people dying, but by their own hand? That’s a bit of a stretch for me. But who am I to preach on this issue I have never had any experience with it and hope I never have to.

To be completely honest even if it really bugs me I will have to say there is most certainly a sliding scale of acceptability with regards to suicide, based on mainly age and medical health. An 80 year old taking their own life in the end stages of liver cancer is significantly different than two teenage lovers killing themselves because of their immature attitude towards loss…and this brings me to my next point, why are we looking at so many fictitious examples of glorified suicide that romanticize the idea? What these works of fiction choose to leave out is the suffering and painfully confusing self-doubting the family and friends of the self inflected victim experience after the event, how selfish of them. God Romeo and Juliet should have sucked up and rather than killing themselves should have gone through a huge Death Cab for Cutie and Iron and Wine phase (of course while wearing tight fitting cloths and makeup…Romeo too) and then after a few years and many diaries later they would go back to being normal people again! Even that is better than suicide (but just barley).

All that I know is that even if I were suffering from immeasurable pain and slowly poisoning myself to death with my own chemical waste, I still could never pull that so enticing trigger…simply on the hope that some brilliant someone halfway around the world could possibly…just possibly be creating a cure to my affliction of suffering (that’s not in the form of hardened cold steel that is..). I bet if you asked anyone who has succeeded at suicide that they would tell you that it was the biggest mistake of their life…

Suicide is Suicide. You cannot play it up to sound beautiful like Romeo and Juliet, you cannot justify it, you cannot consider it right or wrong – for there is no way to monitor EVERY different element leading up to a suicide, there is no sliding scale, and there is definitely no doubt that those who commit suicide are not fully “themselves.”

I am Catholic, I am supposed to believe that those who commit suicide go to hell. But, I do not. Maybe it is simply because I do not want to believe that it happens, but that’s irrelevant. My stance on the topic of suicide, like everyone else who dwells on their opinion, is complex, however my main establishment to what I believe is this: Those who commit suicide are not fully aware of what they are doing, are acting in ways they would not otherwise as if they were in a conscious and normal state of mind, and no matter the velocity or minuteness, they are all mentally ill. Yet the term, “mentally ill,” is not defined by a measurable line, someone who is mentally ill cannot be put on a certain level with people with the EXACT same problems, and therefore, everyone “victim” to suicide is actually a “victim to mental illness.” In my eyes, those who are mentally unstable do not just include bipolar disorder, autism, and the coined mental illnesses. For me it ranges up and down from those who are lonely and clinically depressed, to those who simply have stress and are overly dramatic. If you are unstable, you are not necessarily “ill,” but you are MUCH more vulnerable to rash decisions and ideas that may have detrimental outcomes.

And still, your state of mind is developed through your upbringing. The nurture factor may come into much more play than the nature factor. The battle between the two, though hard to distinguish, has an immense impact on the actions and cultural beliefs of what death really is, and by what means it is acceptable to die. For instance, is it wrong to judge those who die for their country or their religion? Is it wrong to judge those who are suicidal due to the way they are brought up – do we consider their upbringing wrong or of the “mentally ill” sort. All of these specific factors cannot be put on a scale that weighs out when suicide is acceptable or unjustifiable, and it is for this reason that there is so much controversy about the topic.

Personally, I do not believe suicide is acceptable. I do not believe it is justifiable, and I do not think it will ever be looked at as “someone’s individual right to die.” If we have the ability to help those who are suicidal, we need to take all measures to help them. Those who are suicidal are not in a right state of mind, and thus, should be helped mentally before any actions or returns to a “normal” life should occur. Then again, how do you convince a Japanese kamikaze that flying his plane into a building is not honorable and that it is pointless for him to die? All of these differentiating cultures cannot be changed over one such issue, again proving that in nature vs. nurture, nurture can most certainly be the cause of suicide. But still, there is those who are abused and mentally hurt while growing up, those in rare cases that are brainwashed, those who really are diagnosed with true mental disorders that cause chemical ups and downs, and those whose lives are simply just to unbearable (for that period of time anyways).

No matter what, suicide is suicide. Age does not justify anything. If you know you are going to die….but how do you REALLY know. If you are alone and have no one left to turn to…but can you really end life simply because there is no one beside you – some of the greatest accomplishments are done in solitude. Why not see if you can live past two weeks, when not wait and see what else you can give to the world, why not.

I do not believe suicide to be selfish. Those who are in the state of mind to kill themselves are not at all thinking of the after effects. Some of them may not even realize how permanent death really is, or how long it will linger in the lives of others after they pass. They are not mentally stable to even fathom those ideas, they are preoccupied with stress, depression, anxiety, and other issues, most likely completely over shadowing the “real” consequences of suicide. But in all cases, these people need help and upon receiving it can recover.

In summation, suicide is something that in most cases can be prevented, with exceptions to those people who are brought up with the idea that is honorable. Age plays no role, why not stand out what you have, and enjoy it. How would you know that death is better than living? Its not like you have a chance to try it. In the end, I do agree, that “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary solution.” But mainly I believe that those who do pull the trigger, and those who do tighten the noose, and those who do shoot up excessively need help – help that is completely available and effective. Anyone who is suicidal is not truly “themselves,” and if the cause of their reasoning can be discovered, we should by all means possible do what we can to pull them from their stage of instability, and save their life. But suicide is a reality, and the measures by which each one is committed cannot at all be compared – for they are all very different, and all have very different aftermath.

For every suicide, there is a reason, a source, or a fear that causes it. To find that source is to ease the pain and stop the intention, and this, I believe, can save many suicide victims. To calm the “illness” and instability is only the very first step of many.

To live, to decide to live; to die, to decide to die. As a Christian, believing that suicide is wrong comes with the package. Suicide is looked upon as a cowardly way out of life and for that, the soul shall be punished and sent to the fiery pits of hell. But although this is my belief about the after works of suicide, it’s not like it’s something I haven’t thought about. To me, there are so many exceptions to the rule that it keeps people on the fence, being neither completely for it nor completely against it.

“Suicide was against the law. Johnny had wondered why. It meant that if you missed, or the gas ran out, or the rope broke, you could get locked up in prison to show you that life was really very jolly and thoroughly worth living.” (Terry Pratchett)

Suicide IS the easy way out of life. As Bill Maher states, “Suicide is mans way of telling God, ‘You can’t fire me-I quit.’” To someone who has never had these deranged thoughts, compared to someone who has, people with the intent of suicide could find over fifty different ways to kill themselves from the privacy of their own home. Usually someone so intrigued with the initiative of taking their life, is either mentally ill, someone elderly, a person who feels their life sucks beyond all reckoning, and will never see the light at the end ( except when they are on the brink of death) or when a human being has become exceedingly disabled or paralyzed. Anyone who’s everyone have the right to decide whether they want to cash in their chips early, or stay to see if they get lucky. It should not be the family, friends or outsiders looking in, who decide that because dying is seen as something dire, that they should keep their fellow man from jumping off the golden gate bridge.

I know of many people, a few being close friends of mine, that had suicide constantly floating around in the back of their minds, as a sort of scape goat if life became too hard. Some have told me of their lives outside of school and how they have put up with so much indifference, abuse, fights, stereotypes; everything that a teenager could possibly worry about it was there. As any friend would for another, you try and convince them to not give up on life just yet, that the grass is always greener on the other side of the very steep hill. Then you realize, why would I keep someone who has such a screwed up life filled with emotional and physical torture, from taking their own life, and permanently ending their suffering; it’s selfish to ask that of someone you truly care about.

There are those out there that may disagree with the idea of allowing someone to decide their fate when it comes to suicide. Law enforcement agencies are receiving the upper hand when helping someone not go through with their suicide attempt; however having the option of taking your own life should not be decided by the law but by the person(s) themselves. If a terminally ill patient that is going to die in the next month wants to be euthanized, they should have the say so and not have to fight their way through the weighing decisions of family, doctors, lawyers or judges. Who is to say a “mentally unstable” person is truly mentally unstable, when all they talk or think about are creative ways to kill themselves. If they are so desperate to do so turn the other cheek; that was their choice. In this matter, I would say it is more acceptable for the mentally ill and older generation to commit suicide rather than the young and healthy.

However, when it comes to young teens and there raging hormones, play closer attention, although the choice should still be theirs as to what they decided to do with their given life. These days, some teenagers decided to commit suicide because a boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with them or they fear that they will never succeed in life because they are doing so poorly in school; these are not reasons to drop everything that you have and go jump in front of a car or overdose on drugs. I believe if the person attempting suicide could explain why they are choosing the “long walk off a short bridge”, then people and the world could grasp a better understanding for reasons people would die, and not be so closed minded on the idea of suicide.

Suicide. Some, picture a black shape falling through the night sky, clothes fluttering in the cool wind right before the shape crashes to the ground, others see a human, collapsed on the ground, with a pool of bright, scarlet, red blood outlining their body which contains a big, black, gaping hole staring straight up at anyone who passes by. However, this is what I would call the stereotypical suicide, but in truth, there are an infinite types of suicide, and while many may be similar, none of them are the same.

Some people say that suicide is selfish, it’s the “easy way out,” it hurts nearly everybody around them; however, I have learned that while this may be true in many cases, there are also many exceptions. You may say that suicide is selfish, that’s it, that’s all there is to it, no exceptions. If you are one of these people, I am here to prove you wrong. My grandparents on my mom’s side of the family immigrated from Germany at the end of WW2, after their families lost countless loved ones, attempted to stand up to Hitler only to be told to shut up or be shut up, fight in a war they despised, live in fear that they’re best friends had been thrown into a gas chamber, and find out that my pregnant great aunt had committed suicide. I know many people who would immediately start criticizing someone who decided to commit suicide, not to mention someone who was pregnant, and would therefore like to quickly say that things aren’t as black and white as many people make them out to be. This was WW2, Hitler and the SS were taking over everybody and forcing millions of people to flee they’re homes before being made into the fuel for a useless fire, and to tell the truth, sometimes it really didn’t matter if you were considered Jewish or not. In the end, my great aunt and her family found out that they were going to have to make a run for it, they would have to leave everything they knew behind and leave as soon as possible if they wanted to have even the slightest chance in making it. Well, naturally, my aunt realized that pregnant people, tend to move much slower than those that are not pregnant. The family was going to have to move as quick as possible and she realized that no matter what she said they would not leave her behind, but if they brought her they would all pretty much be dead basically defeating the purpose of even leaving. As soon as everybody was packed up and ready to go she ran back into the house saying she forgot something, went down to the basement and shot herself. Did she want to die, did she want to kill her baby, did she want to have to make that choice? No, I obviously never met her, however I am not the kind of person to believed that she actually WISHED to have to make such a hard decision. In the end she had to chose; her two main options were to either flee with her family and run the risk of all of them dying together which might I point out that the chances for that was probably at least 99%, or kill herself and the baby but keep the rest of the family alive. She ended up sacrificing her life and the life of the child to save others. Say what you want to say, but there is very little about the way she died that could be considered selfish.

When it comes to terminally ill patients who want to commit suicide or even anyone committing suicide I find that things are always just too confusing. They are going to die from this disease, but then, one day we’re all gonna die. These people are going to have to suffer from pain everyday probably, the same as anyone with Bipolar Disorder. They are two different types of pain, but most doctors would consider them both to be something they would not like to be diagnosed with and would probably realize that both would be extremely painful. I know it’s going to be hard for those that decide to stay alive but I am glad that they are making that choice. You never know what’s going to happen, I bet they never planned on getting this terminal illness in the first place, so there is no way to know when they will find a miracle cure or when someone’s going to come and tell you something that will seem like the greatest news in your life. I have watch my uncle slowly die of cancer, I saw whatever fat there was seem to melt off of his bones, his skin turn a yellowish hue, legs become swollen and pretty much lose his ability to communicate. I didn’t see him actually die, I don’t know how ready he was, but I do remember that he wanted to live to see his youngest grandchild go to her first day of pre-school and was sad to discover that he died the day before her orientation. However, although he did not get to see her walk to school, I think he was pretty happy he made it so far, and I know personally that I am glad he did not fly to some other state and commit suicide because I got to know him more than I previously had. So yes, they are going to die, it will be slow and painful, but I think they should keep on fighting because in the end, “Life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you’re gonna get”-Forest Gump. Should it be legal, or illegal at this point to commit suicide when diagnosed with a terminal illness, I honestly cannot say and that would require another whole blog.

As for suicide in more general cases, I still cannot really give a straight forward opinion on that either. In eighth grade I used to sit by the school gym in a group of thirty plus people of all different backgrounds and points in their lives. I knew that some of them had previously done drugs, others had cut, I remember learning that on Valentine’s Day one of my friends had to have her stomach pumped because she took WAY too much advil. There was one girl who wore a leopard pattered belt with rings on who I knew by the name of Alexis, I knew who she was, we sat in the same group, but I wasn’t really close to her. The next year I was going home and Caitlin tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Oh, Shannon! Remember Alexis Byrd?!” –“Alexis Byrd?”- “You know, we used to eat lunch with her, she used to wear a leopard belt?”-“Oh Alexis, sorry, I didn’t recognize the last name, but yeah.” –“She died.” I then found out what had happened and that she had overdosed and they were pretty sure it was an accident that she had taken enough to kill her, but she was dead so they would never really know for sure. I went home, and just like Ian took out my yearbook and found her picture and thought about the fact that I would never, ever see her again. I wouldn’t walk across the street of some city and find her going to work ten years from now, I could still picture going to sit down to eat her lunch, but knew that it would be impossible for me to see her eat lunch ever again. But was it her fault? I don’t necessarily think so. I have seen friends pretty much passed the point of control, watched them cry because, due to multiple reasons they were unable to be happy no matter how much they wanted to be, someone or some medicine was hindering them, and they would do bad things to themselves no matter how much they told themselves not to and didn’t want to at the same time. The first time I truly saw this I realized that if my friend and I hadn’t been there and they had been alone right then and did something, I know that part of it wouldn’t be them because, well I guess you’d have to be there to really see, but there was so little control and such complicated reasons so that it was not an issues that could be fixed in ten minutes, could only temporarily be fixed in about six to eight hours, and would take a couple of months to really “fix,” I realized that it would be impossible to blame anything that possibly could have happened on them and say they were taking the easy way out, and being selfish or anything of the sort because not even they truly and purely wanted anything to happen.

Suicide is an extremely complicated issue, was my great aunt’s decision the right one, was it the wrong one? That I will never be one hundred percent sure. Is suicide selfish, the easy way out? I don’t think it is ever purely selfish or easy, but I don’t know if it should be legal or illegal. All I know is that personally I want to fight ‘til the end, I don’t want to leave this world just giving up. I personally would like to be resuscitated, and when I injured my neck and my back in seventh grade, before I went to the doctor and had to go to sleep at night not knowing if I had injured the bone, but freaking out because I knew that if I had I could wake up and possibly be paralyzed even though I didn’t wanted to be, however, I decided that if that happened, I would still want to live because I would find a way to achieve my goals, someway somehow, hope for a cure and not give up.

That is me personally; I will not say that everyone has to be like me or anyone for that matter. Everybody’s different, even twins, trust me on that one. Not many people in America like the thought of suicide, even those who commit it. I have always wondered if, in those states that terminally ill suicide is legal there is a mandatory waiting period that forces the person to think and hopefully get over the initial shock of the diagnosis so that it can be made certain that they aren’t just making a rash decision. I think that at the very LEAST this should be necessary. Suicide is honestly something that is just too complicated to say that it is a pure sin or evil act, circumstances can make all the difference.

-P.S. To all of you who think Catholic and Christians still consider suicide as a horrible sin, I would like to clarify, that from what I learned that stopped quite a while ago and that pretty much only the extremist believe that now a days.

Suicide is obviously and intrisically "touchy" issue, and regardless of whether or not people are for one's right to suicide, we all can agree that it is act not to be glorified. Cases of euthanasia aside, it is the common conception that suicide is a rash act, whether it be planned (even previously attempted) or spontaneous, an act that isn't worth the consequences. It is by this logic that we say: all suicides should be prevented at all costs, hence the common intervention of police and other public workers. However, just because these peolpe that were saved by the police may have so much more to live for in our opinions does not mean that they see it that way or agree. If a mom or dad is suicidal, but it talked out of it, its not like their family life will ever be "normal" (even if their family is unaware of the suicide attempt/thoughts). Granted, it will be better than if they succeeded in taking their own life, but that is a long way away from having a happy family life. Either way, the common argument for prevention of suicide is that the people will recover and lead better lives later, the fact that most keep attempting suicide until they succeed swept under the rug. Yes, the teenager will get over the breakup (hopefully), but does that give us the right to stop them from killing themselves? Private discouragement is one thing, but governmental involvement, even institutionalization? From a philosophical standpoint I see no grounds for it to the government step in, so long as it harms no one (by this I mean things like suicide by proxy, not the emotional toll on friends and family, because by that logic divorce should be illegal along with numerous other things). What one does with there own body is their choice, just as religious or cultural influences that may affect their choice are solely theirs. It just doesn't seem right that our government should have such a powerful say in how and when our lives end.

Yet, even as much as I like laizes-faire best, I do not think I could fathom living with the knowledge that I, or my government, could have stopped a death but did not.

If I were to stick the existentialist viewpoint that my philosophy survey told me I was (a perfect 10 I might add), then I would say, as the countless people have before me, that a person has a right to their own body. I believe that the choices that a person makes are completely up to them and that no one, no matter what position that they hold, should be able to tell them otherwise. I have a feeling, in examining this issue, that the right to making your own decision is going to encompass most of the issues that we cover in this class. Euthanasia, abortion, right to refuse treatment, all of these issues come down to whether or not a person has the right to decide. And suicide is no different. If you choose to do so, then that is your decision. And while people may say that an old person is considered more acceptable, that does not make their life less precious, but rather greater. Those who have for lack of a better term finished their term on earth, where all the people they know have died and they are afflicted with the pain of arthritis, shingles, and other typically older diseases; are more entitled to make that decision because they have experience life enough to know when the right time is to get out. And so I repeat that a person does have the right to make the decision about what is theirs, and if that be their life, then so be it.

But for most of us, our lives do not belong to us. We are not the sole investors in our well-being, nor are we the sole contributors to our legacy. We are entwined in the web of life, where all of us are interconnected. Our parents, our friends, our significant others, our children, our teachers, every connection that we make with someone means that our lives are not the solitary existence, and thus meaning that we do not have the sole stake in our survival.

And for that reason, we cannot say that it is our decision to make, for we are not alone in the effects. The ripple that would be caused by a suicide is too great for us to ignore and being something that is not up to others. Suicide is an event that touches hundreds with one action, so why then, can we say that one person can be allowed to take that action? Because the logic is flawed in saying that we cannot force our opinions on those who feel compelled to commit suicide and that it is their life, when they will in turn force their actions on us and change our lives in a way we did not want. We are all interconnected, and for that, no one life stands alone.