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[wierd]

What if the suicidal person has children, hmm? Should they just forget about their own children's feelings and state of the mind and kill themselves anyway, because apparently  it's their 5-year old kid's fault that they are suicidal? Why is running away and abandoning your child not okay, but you think killing yourself when you have children is?

And no, kids don't owe their parents because their parents gave them life, they owe them because their parents spent a fuckton of time, effort, and money just so they could have a decent life, while getting nothing in return. The kids could at least do them the favor of not causing massive psychological trauma.

That's a two sided coin.  Children are taken away from their parents all the time by child protective services, and if a parent is unable to care for the child (due to mental health that is not being treated), they are not fit to raise the child.

The person seeking euthanasia can place their children into state custody, or into the custody of a family member.  At least with euthanasia, the person is able to give a testimony about why they are ending their own life, where with forced separation, there is none.  Suicide is the twisted result of the mind feeling that it has no options left, and is the only remaining form of relief. If the children are indeed the cause of this feeling, then voluntary surrender of the children to another care giver should be an option on the table. However, the way you have worded it, that immediately paints the parent with a very large brush, with the words "DEADBEAT", and "FAILURE".  A great deal of suffering could be averted if those words were not ascribed to people who put forth the conscious effort to give their children better homes than they can provide.

Yes, it makes children have to "grow up" sooner than is healthy, but what you are suggesting is not healthy.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Our efforts with mental health should be as disconnected as possible from gun violence incidents, since if it is I'm about 100% confident it will only lead to making treatment of mental illness even more criminalized and even more inhumane.

[misko27]

Well I have bad news: they're already killing themselves, and the ones who were converted to not-killing-themselvesness are only there out of guilt! Amazing. We've somehow managed to make their life worse, and they already wanted to kill themselves!

This is not true. They are also there because they feel better, or killing themselves was too much trouble, or for any of several other reasons.

I'm referring specifically to all the people "saved" by the fear of hurting their families. My point is that the argument is stupid, since if you can't convince them to live for themselves, convincing them to live out of guilt is probably the worst possible option. The social contract already breaks down when someone no longer values their life; you can guilt them into continuing to follow the Social Contract, but it's entirely to their loss.

some process for ensuring as far as is feasible that people who elect to die wouldn't have regretted it later.

Well have any of the successful suicides complained about the post-suicide QoL?

Cooling-off periods are one way of doing that, as is psychological evaluation

But that's the point! Society would just say "Oh well no one sane would ever want to kill themselves anyway" and just de facto outlaw euthanasia by making it so there is no situation in which it is acceptable... and since when did we start protecting people from their own decisions? For a liberal capitalist democracy it's the height of hypocrisy. Caveat Emptor. We're allowed to ruin our lives, but not to end them?

The thing with the euthanasia argument is that it requires a person to be of sane mind for it to be a reasonable decision. By definition, someone suffering from a mental illness is not of sane mind. Medication and therapy can actually stop a person from being stuck in that depressed state of mind for at least most of the time, even if it's dipped into occasionally or it takes time to find that medication/therapy combination that works.

See? It's easy to go "Well we can fix it..." And what if we can't? How long does someone have to wait? One month, two, three, six? A year, two years, five? Why not just demand we never die and get it over with, don't just draw the process out.

but when someone can simply grab a gun and avoid the entire process, any attempts to modulate that process are moot, at least in that particular case.

Here's the thing: I'm actually not such a huge fan of guns. I actually don't like them very much (I do actually want one, as I've always wanted to hunt, but while that's firmly on my todolist, it's behind "become a megamillionaire and own my own summer home upstate") and agree with your premise, that increased gun control would lead to fewer suicides and that this would generally be a Good Thing^TM. But I also passionately believe that someone's right to life includes the right to end it without having to submit to a bunch of bureaucrats or anyone else who couldn't be bothered with you or your problems until you decided that you'd had quite enough of them yourself.

What if the suicidal person has children, hmm?

Depends. Are they grown? If they're out of the house, by all means. You did your job. Congratulations. Here's a celebratory game of russian roulette to celebrate.

Should they just forget about their own children's feelings and state of the mind and kill themselves anyway, because apparently  it's their 5-year old kid's fault that they are suicidal?

I didn't say that, but parents have obligations. That said...

Why is running away and abandoning your child not okay, but you think killing yourself when you have children is?

Actually, running away is already totally ok! It's called adoption! Fostercare! You can drop off unwanted babies at the hospital! All you need to say "I can't handle this." And hell, you may even be doing them a favor: if you're a decent person and you make sure your kid is adopted by a family that could raise them much better than you, I think you've earned the right to go off and do whatever. And if you're not such a decent person, then it's probably for the better that your kid was taken by children's services anyway...

And no, kids don't owe their parents because their parents gave them life, they owe them because their parents spent a fuckton of time, effort, and money just so they could have a decent life, while getting nothing in return.

I'ma slap a big ole [Citation needed] on this and end it with "Speak for yourself."

Yes, it makes children have to "grow up" sooner than is healthy, but what you are suggesting is not healthy.

It feels weird to have wierd on my side of an argument for some reason. Oh well, I'm not complaining.

Our efforts with mental health should be as disconnected as possible from gun violence incidents, since if it is I'm about 100% confident it will only lead to making treatment of mental illness even more criminalized and even more inhumane.

That's an excellent point I hadn't even considered. Fuck. Like we needed more One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest in the world.

[redwallzyl]

Well I guess I have seen what the logical extreme of libertarainism is. The only reason someone should be allowed to end their life is in the case of extreme health issues.

[McTraveller]

Well I guess I have seen what the logical extreme of libertarainism is. The only reason someone should be allowed to end their life is in the case of extreme health issues.

I don't do this often but - citation needed?  Why should that be the only reason?  (I feel that suicide is a Bad Thing - but I can't come up with any rationale, even religious, for forcibly preventing people from taking their own life.  Making it difficult enough that they have to think about it twice, sure... but locking them up or forcing them on medication with a rationale of "For their own good" is a specious argument.)

[wierd]

I would say "unbearable suffering," personally.

This can be physical, which most people have a hard time denying, and so it gets the most popular support (such as what little support euthanasia gets....) but can also include unbearable mental anguish/suffering.   

Say for instance, you live to be very very old. You are still healthy (at least by geriatric terms), but everyone you have ever known has died ahead of you, the world is a harsh alien place full of terrible ideas, and the cultural norms have shifted drastically. In short, you do not want to be alive anymore, as you cannot adapt to modern living. YET--- some overbearing people insist that you are copping out, and that allowing you to self-terminate is just unthinkable. I have actually seen people in this condition, who self-terminate in horribly agonizing ways-- like refusal to eat or drink.  I would rather that they be given the option to shoot up opioids until their heart stops, administered by a trusted care giver, to assure that they in fact die from it. (And dont end up "still alive, but now horribly locked-in", or worse)

For those liberal progressivists out there-- Imagine living to be 100, but at that time, there are literal nazis in power, and all the things you consider normal or decent have been snuffed out.  That would be a pretty good mirror image to the kind of changes these people are living with in society, all alone, and isolated in an adult care facility, where they receive no visitors.

That line allows for people with severe depression to decide "Yes, I really want to end my existence", and to get professional help carrying that plan out (so that they dont become a "suicide survivor" with serious consequences).

Kinda like how certain medical procedures are only available to people who have undergone some immense exploration of options first, this would have similar counselling, drug therapy, and other options exhausted first.

But it would still be available.

[bloop_bleep]

misko27:

I bring up the example of the five year old child because you were saying that your relatives *deserve* immense pain and trauma if you're suicidal because they didn't help enough. Because a tiny kid who just barely understands what death even is would *totally* know how to help you.

wierd:
I disagree that giving your child to foster care or an orphanage is always okay. Once you have a child, it is your responsibility, that you cannot back out of. It is incredibly selfish to give your child trauma because you don't feel quite ready yet to accept the consequences of the thing that *you* created. If you physically cannot care for the child, in that if they continued to live with you they would have an even worse life than if they were in an orphanage, then giving them away is somewhat justified. But when you are doing it just to restore your own personal freedom it is not okay, when you consider the effect it would have on the child.


My point is that suicide can indeed be selfish in some cases, and overall it would be better to try to prevent it instead of going "eh, it happens." There are some cases where it's preferable, but those are extremely rare. A very big fraction of the suicides in this country can be easily prevented with therapy and other measures.

[wierd]

If the person is contemplating suicide, it is a little more severe than "Oh noez! Now I cant go to rave parties!"

Conflating the two is a bit disingenuous, no??  Also, "Suddenly baby!" in circumstances where every possible measure was taken to prevent pregnancy short of castration or wearing a chastity belt have happened. Please dont discount those.

Besides, that was not even the point.

The point was---- If you are suicidal, and consider it truly better for your child that you not exist anymore, it is functionally no worse than the child being forcibly placed into the foster system/put for adoption. Slightly better, because you get the chance to say why you are doing it, where in cases of CPS intervention, you have a court system declaring something about the parent, and cessation of contact. (It's like they are dead, but worse, because they are alive and never see you.)

We routinely take children and place them into foster care for a plethora of reasons. Yet, your rhetoric implies that it is never OK for a parent to voluntarily cede that custody, and exit a child's life.

[bloop_bleep]

Whoops, mixed up your and misko's arguments. I was making a tangent in reply to misko's statement about giving to foster care. I interpreted it as referring to giving to foster care in general, not related to suicide. Might be wrong in that interpretation, though.

But in reply to YOUR arguments: the problem isn't just with the fact that the parent will no longer be there during the child's upbringing; it's also the mental trauma given to the child. Finding out your parent killed themselves tends to have a pretty negative effect on your psychological stability.

[wierd]

So does being ripped away from your parents, and placed with strangers.

Yet we routinely do that.

[smjjames]

While postpartium depression is a thing, people get depressed for reasons other than just because they have kids. Not sure why you guys are fixated on that aspect of it.

The only connection suicides have to guns is that guns are simply easier to obtain and tend to be far more lethal than other methods,

Israel had a problem with suicides in the military, so, they banned soldiers from taking their weapons home for the weekend (or something similar). Guess what happened? Suicide rates dropped. I'm not sure if that was the rate of attempted suicides or suicides that resulted in death, but the point is that reducing access to guns does reduce suicides.

Of course, the places that have higher suicide rates are rural areas and those same places are the ones who are the most vocal about guns. So, while MSH has a point about disconnecting mental health from gun violence in general, you literally can't in the case of suicides.

[Magistrum]

I would just like to jump in to remind that one of the most surefire ways of overcoming suicidal thoughts is failing to suicide.

[bloop_bleep]

smjjames: We are not saying that the children cause the depression, we are considering the effects that a parent's suicides has on the children.

So does being ripped away from your parents, and placed with strangers.

Yet we routinely do that.

Problem is, often in that case the original parent(s) are abusive, and there is no way to stop them from being so. In the case of suicide, therapy, medication, and other such measures can go a long way to prevent it. Which is why we should get a better mental health system and restrict access to guns instead of throwing our hands up and deciding there's no way to stop it.

[wierd]

[Failed suicide stops further suicidal thoughts]

No, that can make it much much worse.

I am in a position to know. I work with some people where that has happened.

Here's some common ways people try to kill themselves, how they fail, and what the reprocussions can be.

"Hey! Let's run a parked car in our garage until the carbon monoxide kills us! It is painless, and causes no symptoms other than sleepyness! So easy!"

Result of failure: Congratulations. You have greatly damaged your central nervous system, have impaired motor function, speech deficits, cannot control elimination, and a number of other things! You thought you had things to complain about BEFORE! WEEEEELLL buddy, now, not only do you still have those thoughts, you are now living the rest of your days in an adult care facility, where you are actively prevented from doing just about anything that might result in your death! Enjoy the full remaining natural span of your life!

"Hey, I will put this shotgun in my mouth, and pull the trigger!"

Result of failure: Similar to the above, but only more pronounced, with physical disfigurement, and likely blindness!! WHOOPIIEE!!

I think you get the idea.  There is a reason I would prefer people get euthanasia. The administering care giver can assure that you do in fact, ----die.

[wierd]

smjjames: We are not saying that the children cause the depression, we are considering the effects that a parent's suicides has on the children.

So does being ripped away from your parents, and placed with strangers.

Yet we routinely do that.

Problem is, often in that case the original parent(s) are abusive, and there is no way to stop them from being so. In the case of suicide, therapy, medication, and other such measures can go a long way to prevent it. Which is why we should get a better mental health system and restrict access to guns instead of throwing our hands up and deciding there's no way to stop it.

If you note, you would have seen that I advocate for exactly that-- but am understanding enough that those are not magic bullets, and dont wave magic wands over people.  For those people where medication, counselling, and other therapy fail, euthanasia is much better than do-it-yourself with the shotgun.