u/faroffland said:
You said 'people aren't free to commit suicide' which is simply untrue and what I was responding to. The fact it does not meet your personal criteria of being pain-free and 'humane' does not make that statement true. You don't seem to recognise the difference between a fact and a moral opinion.
You're now changing the goal posts of what you've said. You claim to be unable to end your life and that people aren't free to commit suicide - the fact is you're not, infinite methods are available.
My attempt at 15 did not work because I didn't realise a paracetamol overdose takes a longer time to kill you. I was 15 and living at home and my mum found me, I was hospitalised for a week. That has nothing to do with the government reducing methods, I would have done exactly the same thing if other methods were available. I know if I had a second attempt it would be a method that would work which is why I seek help instead of following through.
It was a serious attempt but I'm glad it failed, and many other suicide attempt survivors are too. Just as you claim I'm ignoring people who want to commit suicide and feel they can't, you're completely ignoring that fact too - that some people who survive suicide attempts say they're happy they did. What about those people? You seem to either categorise it as 'cries for attention' or that they want to die and simply can't forever - ignoring that many people seriously attempt and have episodes of being actively suicidal but have treatment, recover and are then glad to be alive/go on to have happy lives.
The fact you call some suicide attempts 'cries for attention' and not 'cries for help/support' tells me a lot about your views tbh. You have one opinion and you cannot seem to be able to acknowledge facts anything other than what fits that individual narrative, instead of recognising that the issue is extremely complicated or the ability to see and acknowledge different perspectives (like people who have survived attempts and are happy to have done so). So there doesn't seem to be much point having a 'discussion' given it's not really a discussion - you say things, I respond to it all, and then you either move the goalposts or go off on a tangent. You want someone to talk at rather than to.
u/existentialgoof said:
Your definition of "free to commit suicide" is absurd. If we use that definition, then prisons don't deprive inmates of their freedom, because occasionally, some inmates manage to successfully escape. Therefore they are free to leave at any time. The fact that there are robust and extremely effective measures in place to stop people from succeeding in ending their life means that they are not free to end their lives in any reasonable sense of the term. The consequences of a failed suicide attempt can be many orders of magnitude worse than any legal punishment that could be imposed on them; and you're expecting people to just ignore those risks. Do you think that there has been a political struggle over passing assisted dying for absolutely NO reason? Why would anyone put themselves through that if people could die at the moment of their choosing by force of will alone, and nothing the government could do would ever effecctively stop them? That's also to say nothing of the fact that many people get actively locked up in suicide-proof psychiatric wards, under constant observation, for the exclusive purpose of making sure that they don't commit suicide; and NHS trusts have been sued by families for even allowing patients home leave which has resulted in them committing suicide. Freedom to commit suicide means freedom from any interventions that are designed to stop one from succeeding. I haven't moved the goalposts at all; you're just using a definition of freedom that is functionally meaningless because it means that even if someone is locked up in a high security prison, technically (by your definition) they're free to leave at any time.
You then go on to undermine your own case by discussing all the people who have made serious attempts to end their own life and failed. I don't understand why you think that the welfare of those who failed in their attempts and then still continue to wish that they were dead aren't worthy of any consideration; and they are just expendable cannon fodder? A reasonable approach to this would be to have a waiting period before allowing access to reliable and humane methods; which would help deter impulsive attempts, without forcing those who have sincere and longstanding wishes to die to live against their will. Anecdotal evidence shows that giving people the option of ending their life makes it feel less urgent to do so:
https://news.sky.com/story/ive-been...-in-my-30s-it-may-have-saved-my-life-12055578
I don't understand why, if you've made a decision not to commit suicide, you need the government to be banning certain methods. But especially if you aver that people have access to "infinite" methods anyway. If that's the case, then what is the point of banning just one method like sodium nitrite? What's the point of banning suicide pods?
ufaroffland said:
Your analogy to prison makes absolutely no sense at all. What YOUR argument is actually saying is, 'The government has removed access to pasta and bread, therefore people don't have the freedom to eat!' Well… people would still have the freedom to eat. Not exactly what they wanted and it would be restricted, but they COULD still absolutely eat should they wish.
In this day and age, with phones at our fingertips, if you wanted to die right now today in a considered way that isn't an impulsive act - you could travel to anywhere with a building taller than say 20 stories, open a window, and jump out. At a certain height, there is no way to survive that. It is 100% that you will die. You could book a skydiving session and not pull your cord, you could superglue your mouth and nostrils shut, tie stones with very hard to pick knots around your ankles and jump off a pier in the dead of night. The list goes on and on and on.
People do not often do this. Why? Because as has been studied, for the vast majority of people, the active suicidal phase is short-lived, as previously detailed in my comment. Most people's active suicidal urges come and go over a few hours, maybe a day or two. The vast majority of people therefore use things available to them or easily accessible things at home they have stored 'just in case' - they take overdoses or try to hang themselves with a dressing gown. These impulsive attempts are more likely to fail, even though most attempts are 'serious' with intent to die.
If someone wants to plan a suicide months in advance in a considered, long-term active suicidal state like you are claiming, they can. It very rarely happens because the vast majority of people AREN'T actively suicidal for that length of time and don't 'plan' a suicide like a major life event - a lot of people don't leave even a note for their families, for example - but you're talking about a very small minority of people who are. In those cases, there are fail-safe ways of doing it.
So then we come down to why don't you use those methods? This question ultimately falls on personal criteria - it's too painful or 'inhumane' as you put it. But that isn't a 'freedom being denied to you', that is your own personal individual criteria of what method YOU feel is ok to use. That isn't a philosophical 'logical' argument like you're posturing - it's a personal opinion of the available options. You clearly do not want to use a method that causes you pain and distress. But that does not mean you or anyone else don't have the 'freedom' to commit suicide if you really want to.
Again, you have a lot of bluster and claim to be coming at it from a 'philosophical' point of view about 'freedom' - but your argument is that fundamentally none of the methods available to you fulfil your personal criteria. That's an opinion, a personal choice - not a fact or a logical argument/conclusion.
I don't need the government to ban or not ban methods - that isn't my argument at all, that's you assuming things about what I'm saying and then drawing false conclusions. I've simply said I disagree that people don't have the freedom to commit suicide - they do through infinite methods. Those methods exist, they simply don't fit your criteria of what you 'want' or 'don't want' - which isn't philosophy, it isn't logic, it's just your personal preferences.
u/existentialgoof said:
That's completely misinformed. Do you honestly believe that I could just go up to any high office building and ask for access to one of their high up office floors, open up their window, and jump out? Is that seriously how you think that works?? Similarly, do you think that sky diving companies allow people to sky dive by themselves when they have no prior experience or training (and by the way, I have done tandem skydiving)? Even if this was a viable option, do you believe it would remain so if we suddenly saw epidemic levels of people committing suicide by skydiving, or do you think that they'd tighten up on the rules at that point as with anything else that gives easy access to suicide? There used to be bridges that people could jump off and have a reasonably high chance of dying, but those bridges now have suicide barriers on them.
Suicide is not a criminal act; so why should I be forced to sneak around the barriers that the law has put in place in order to do it? If I'm entitled to end my life by gluing my mouth and nostrils shut (as if there is even a single precedent of that ever working), then why am I not entitled to die by swallowing a sodium nitrite solution? What is the purpose of restricting certain methods if doing so doesn't ultimately constrain a person's freedom to die by suicide?
This does not come down to people, myself included, being afraid of a bit of pain. The more important factor is whether the methods actually work, and what the risks are if they don't work. However, having said that, if it isn't a criminal act to commit suicide, and if society isn't even willing to honestly label it an immoral one (as opposed to this new narrative that people who make that choice can't be held responsible for their choices and therefore aren't acting immorally), then there's no justification for putting barriers in place which do make suicide more painful than it has to be. Because if none of us opted into this life with our consent, I don't understand why it should be made more difficult or unpleasant than strictly necessary for us to decide to opt out. We have the technology to make it very easy to opt out, and significantly lower the risk.
So we really need a robust justification from any government that instead of allowing people to avail themselves of options which make suicide easier, choose to actively make it more risky and painful than it ever was in the past. Since suicide stopped being a de jure criminal act with the passage of the 1961 Suicide Act; society has moved more towards 'mental illness' narratives of suicide; which allows the government to exert strict control on people's freedom to die by suicide, but be able to disguise their subjugation and brutal disregard for autonomy as paternalistic benevolence. And this brings me back to the point that by having these suicide prevention measures in place, we reinforce stigma against people who are experiencing suicidal inclinations, which in turn, will disincline them to come forward. Many people would rather be labelled as criminals than be labelled "vulnerable", and be denied even the opportunity to defend their own cause. The whole point of labelling suicidal people "vulnerable" rather than criminalising suicide, is so that the "vulnerable" person is discredited before they can even speak in their own defence. At least if you are charged with a crime, then you have the right to defend yourself. There is no legal recourse for defending oneself against suicide prevention and thus being relegated to the legal and moral status of an infant.
u/faroffland said:
Edit - I'm actually deleting the first portion of this comment. Without meaning to it feels very much like 'egging someone on' who is pretty unstable. So I'll just leave the rest of it instead.
I'm not going to bother having any more conversation about it - you're clearly suicidal and looking for reasons why you can justify avoiding it to yourself (with some skewed perspective on needing to 'justify' living in the first place). I'm really, really glad that's the case and I hope it continues forever. I'm glad the government doesn't have suicide pods for you because as long as they don't, you can continue to find reasons not to do it. I'm very sorry you feel the way you do and I really hope it eases for you one day, and you keep yourself safe.
