Phml
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Posts: 2035
Registered: 06-09 |
I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted suicide is that people commit suicide anyway.
That's not a strong argument at all.
The logic itself is flaky at best. Replace "suicide" for anything else and see how that goes. "I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted pedophilia is that people rape kids anyway". "I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted cannibalism is that people eat people anyway". If you'd rather stick to things that only affect the individual (although it could be argued a suicide affects everyone in a social circle, to some extent): "I think one of the strong arguments in favour of assisted obesity is that people eat too much anyway". People doing stuff doesn't mean what they're doing is good, nor that is an absolute scenario where either they do it or they don't and quantity is irrelevant. Condoning stuff just because it happens doesn't work, as a moral or practical position.
Much more importantly, most suicides are caused by depression. That is an indisputable fact ; for anyone who stops and doubts this, please, please, please, go do some basic research on suicides if you really care about this topic ; and by research I mean actual scientific reports or studies conducted by professional therapists rather than some youtube video about a celebrity's lifechoice!
Depression can be cured or alleviated, suicides can be prevented. Of course, there's no guarantee. Of course, it requires a lot of work. Of course, it's much easier to just let someone kill themselves and forget about them after a few monts, weeks, days of grief...
I'm not against people taking their own life, at all. Everyone should be able to make that choice ; and in my opinion, our current system is pretty good as is : the information is out there for anyone who's willing to look for it, but you still have to be proactive and determined enough about it.
Assisted suicide, on the other hand, is wrong for a number of reasons. Why should anyone believe people who aren't smart enough to figure out how to kill themselves in a painless and efficient way are smart enough to make a much more important decision, the choice to live or to die, without being influenced by a lobby, a company or society itself telling them it's fine to kill yourself? Not to mention the pain itself makes it harder to make rational decisions - harder than it already is, as we as human beings already tend to base our decision-making on emotion rather than logic even when we're in perfect health.
To put it simply, anyone who believes assisted suicide didn't result in at least one person killing themselves whereas that person might have stayed alive and lived a relatively happy life is living in a fairy tale, and that's what doesn't jive well with me.
Ideally, assisted suicide should sort out between the vast majority of people who need counceling and the few people who legitimately need help to die with dignity ; but people make mistakes, and when we're talking about life or death, any mistake is unacceptable, especially when the net benefit is so vague and ill-defined.
Last edited by Phml on 11-12-11 at 12:17
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11-12-11 10:31 
