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From: swatt@ittvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: Re: Is it a right?
Message-ID: <770@ittvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-Jun-83 15:31:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: ittvax.770
Posted: Sun Jun  5 15:31:42 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 6-Jun-83 22:27:13 EDT
References: gatech.176
Lines: 77

Regarding Gene Spafford's comments about "suicide is not a right".  I tend
to agree with him that a lot of cases of suicide are just poor judgment,
or lack of perspective.  My own high school had at least one suicide I
know of over trivia (not being elected to something).  10, 5, or perhaps
even 2 years later those events which seemed so important are reduced
to more realistic proportions.

However, to conclude from this that suicide is "not a right" one must ask:

	How does one prevent people from exercising this non-right?

It was the case in Great Britan until recently (1974 I believe) that the
property of suicides was confiscated by the state.  Is this preferable?

One method that is employed today is simply to declare people who
attempt suicide incompetant (in the legal sense) and take away their
freedom to act.  I don't believe our written laws state this view, but
in practice, attempted suicide is viewed by our society as grounds
to put the person under some kind of guardianship, which is to say,
put in an institution.  Certainly with minors, who are to some degree
legally incompetant anyway, parents or relatives who want to have them
involuntarily committed to an institution will have little trouble if
they have a history of attempted suicide.

Now perhaps in the cases of just plain poor judgment or lack of
perspective, a few months under supervision and restraint would suffice
to cure their attitude.  I bet several hours spent really TALKING with
their parents or other adults would have the same effect.  Parents want
to save their children from all the mistakes they made, but without
having to admit to them!  I think growing up around grandparents used
to have the effect of giving a larger perspective to kids; they could
usually get a story or two about what their parents were like when they
were growing up.

In cases of chronic suicidal depression, there is also strong support
from society if parents or relatives want to force
institutionalization.  The record of involuntary committment is not a
terribly good one.  It is very hard to perform the functions of both
jailer and therapist.  People won't cooperate with the therapists
because they know everything they say is reported back to the
authorities who grant or withold priviliges according to their notion
of "progress". Whatever was wrong with them to start with, being forced
into an institution tends to develop paranioa (justifiably).

Other cases: painful and terminal diseases, general boredom with life,
etc., how are you going to recognize who might be thinking of suicide
if they are otherwise managing their affairs? Will you require all
private therapists to report "indications" of suicidal thoughts?  This
will only make people not cooperate with private therapists, and turn
the whole society into an institution.  (It is worth noting that the
USSR treats certain political ideas as "mental illness" requiring
institutional treatment.  The "treatment" is, of course, controlled by
the state).

You might be able to reduce the number of suicides by adopting a
penalty for "success", such as confiscation of private estate, but this
seems only to punish the survivors, who are presumably grieved enough.

You might be able to force treatment of all people who attempt suicide
by making it a crime with a mandatory sentence (sentence to treatment
facilities), but I would want more proof of effectiveness before I
endorse this approach.

It is interesting that the original opposition to suicide was based on
religious grounds, that is your life belongs to God and you have it
only to use "in trust".  In an officially secular society, if God
doesn't own your life, and you don't own it, who does?  If the price of
reducing suicide is to make the state the "owner" of individual lives,
then I'm afraid I prefer to have the suicides.

In conclusion:

	Suicide is a "right" unless you're willing to adopt policies
	and practices sufficient to prevent it.


		- Alan S. Watt