People who smoke might as well be committing suiacide, ya smoke a half a pack a day for a year you get 8-10oz of tar in your lungs. That kills your lungs, which causes breathing problems, and cancer, which causes death, so it might as well be concidered suiacide.



well what do you do make something illegal? they make it punishable by a fine, or jail time. and no what i said is if someone does committe suiacide and they kill themselves, who are you going to point this crime at? if it's illegal someone needs to pay the price, whether it be jail time or money.

Yes it is a matter of blame. Stealing is illegal, punishable by jail time, killing, punishable by jail time and or death, rape; jail time, so what's next? Sucessfull Suiacide; make those who made his life hell pay, Unsuccessful Suiacide; Put them in jail or a fine? making it illegal doesn't make sense.



i never said that after a certian age they can commit suicide legally, i put the age thing there for the purpose of pointing out that after 21 people can kill themselves by smoking. as for the bible, *screw* what it says

just because the person responsible for the death is already dead and that there's no one else who should take the blame, doesn't make it a canditate for legality. it is illegal in a sense that it is still killing life. just because it's illegal doesn't mean it should always be paid by some materialistic price or an equivalent time in jail. you can't charge someone who committed suicide and let him pay fine for killing himself, or throwing his lifeless body in jail. for those religious people, suicide is equivalent to a sin that the soul is burned in hell for eternity.


making it legal woudn't make sense either. successfull suicide would give a scar to those who were left behind. those who probably care more about the person. as the cliche goes, "life will never be the same". those who would be bugged by their conscience would probably end up blaming themselves and in the worst case scenario, suicide. the emotional scar will be deep. unsuccessful suicide would have a psychological effect to the one who attempted the feat (for lack of a better term). studies show that people who attempts suicide have the tendency to become mentally challenged (politically correct term).

the point is not about who's to pay or who's to blame. it's about the effect of making such stuff legal.

I dont see how it can be illegal. How are you going to charge someone who is killed himself? Like some angry person in jackass said, "a dead man, cant sue nobody".... nor be sued. If you are talking about the people who kill others with bombs strapped to their body then I guess it should definitely not be legal since their objective is other people and if they get caught in the attempt then they should be charged or something.

"Now assisted suicide is a whole different story, I believe that assisted suicide is absolutely retarded, anyone who "Assists" someone on killing themselves should go kill themselves as well because they are worthless and meaningless to the world."

What an enlightened point of view...So people who are too sick to even more their tongue and plea the doctors to stop the machines so that they can stop their painful existence are idiots too ?

So, our ENLIGHTENED human civilisation can't even tolerate one's freedom to choose their own path ? So, it's retarted to help someone exit from his/her misery (think, someone who can't take his own life because he's unable to do anything, for example, because of an accident).

Even most of the pan-idiotic religions of this planet don't condone suicide, helping someone take his life...for some silly reasons...You really expect that you won't go to paradise because you tried to take your life ? Paradise ? 10year old myth-stories to frighten people so that they have a certain code of behaviour ?

People have gone a long way from their early Primate ancestors but I still feel that their perverted sense of good and evil is more clouded than ever before...

If we find stupidity in freedom, then the next step is to find reason for the killings (Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq) no matter if they are small children or soldiers, we'll find sense in genocide (Pontus, Armenia), we'll find logic in seperation based on social micro-differences....

Maybe you don't see the connection at first but, maybe you don't even find the connection between suicide-helping others take their lives when they can't and freedom...

In the end, it's another small rock of the wall that was built to protect the vanity of our species.

I definitely think that it should be legal. This is an area where I really don't think the law should get involved. A life is very personal, and most likely spiritual. Everyone has different spiritual beliefs (I am not talking about religion, but about the perspective each has on life and life's purpose). For instance, if one were to believe that life is a form of disipline for ones spirit, and/or one choose the life he/she wants to lead before he is born. If the worlds environment (social, political, etc) has a negative effect on ones progression toward a higher being, then maybe it would be better to kill ones self, save the good works one has done to ones soul and return to build upon that in the next life. You get what I mean.

Also, free will is a huge part of our mortal lives To be or not to be is a most personal choice that can only be made by ones own free will.

Ahh, the fallacy of the slippery slope. First off, this only works under the assumption that those who commit suicide leave behind people who want them back. Think about it, who will be hurt when a starving orphan drowns himself? Will you be hurt if a leper/bum died right on the opposite side of the world? Oh, please don't say, "I will be hurt, because I'm human. I care," 'coz, really, that's bull$#!+. You won't even know of their deaths, just like the rest of the planet.



Uh, yes? I didn't exactly get the entire gist of it but it did spark an insight. About leaving behind people hurt by an act of suicide, if these people really cared, then why didn't they strive to better the victim's condition right before he took his own life? IMHO, a parent who eventually leads his/her child to suicide, whether directly or indirectly, and, later on, mourns for the great loss is a total hypocrite.



Ahh, yet another pro-lifer's hasty generalization. Must I expound more on the weak foundation behind this statement?



On the contrary, smoking indeed is suicide. First, it has no known physiologically beneficial effect. Almost anyone who lights up a stick knows darn well how dangerous that stuff is. Also, it may be a habit but it is not something that any person is born with. There is always a first time, a turning point in a person's life that will determine whether he/she lives on to smoke or lives on even longer to not smoke. I do think it is suicide or just a slower form of it.



Ahh, yes. Anyone can get help, isn't it? Ask and you shall receive, isn't it? Where there's a will, there's a way, isn't it? Well, here's what I think: If they did get help, would they be dead now?

See, I have observed that there are a lot of people here who are pro-lifers, quite a handful of you partially driven by religious beliefs. However, I do think we are doing all suicide victims a great injustice in just assuming that they all "took the easy way out" and died without a fight.

See, I don't think people will take their own lives if they are aware there is another way out. The problem is, they're not and it's not because they haven't looked for answers hard enough, it's just that they don't have the eyes needed to spot the solution. Simply put, they did try to get help, only they didn't get any.

Indulge me and walk into my fantasy. Suppose you were mistakenly put alone into a ship that was catapulted into interstellar space. You're really hungry but you don't know which console buttons to press so you could get a Happy Meal. As a matter of fact, there are only two buttons on the panel: a green one and a red one marked "Self-Destruct"

I know the sensible of you guys will press the green button but, unfortunately, it shuts down the air-conditioning unit. Not only are you hungry now but you're also cold and beginning to freeze your @$$ off. In despair, maybe, some of you might keep on pressing the green button for n times, all to no avail. What else will you do? It seems the only choices you have are between an excruciatingly long and painful death and a swift and painful death.

I have no doubt most of you will either press the red button or just helplessly freeze or starve to death.

Back on Earth, I will be laughing. I'd think, "What an idiot. If he had pressed that green button just once more, he'd be teleported back into the warm and toasty confines of his own home." A co-conspirator, who also happened to be a priest, would say, "Tsk, he/she gave up too easily." An eccentric friend of mine would pipe in, "If only he sought the answers from the stars... (Interstellar space is very conducive to astrology), he would have known that there are n+1 red giants in view. If he just pressed that green button one more time..."

If it weren't for the fact that your non-decaying body is in interstellar space and had no coffin or casket to shelter it, I'm sure you would have rolled in your graves.

See, that's also what's happening. Please don't feel like every suicide victim is so beneath you for having performed what you deem to be the taboo act of self-destruction. Please don't just mindlessly say life is the answer simply because it is what the religion taught you. Don't be insensitive and say suicide is not the answer or "Whatever it is, it's bearable," because, if I was a betting man, I'd bet life has been relatively good to you and you don't know what you're talking about. Don't be judgmental and say they gave up too easily or made the wrong choice because there's always another way 'coz frankly, I don't think they'd give a )@mn about alternatives if they couldn't see it or, worse, if it is denied to them.

Honestly, though, I don't think we should even be asked whether suicide should be legal or not. When it comes to situations harsh enough to push a man (or woman) on the brink of bringing about his/her own death, does it matter whatever the law says?

Just my two cents (which, I'm aware, happened to be so long, I think it'd make a dollar or two)

I think that today there is no talking about the preciousness of human life. The sole fact that we are born as humans and not as something else is a very rare and preciouss thing that should be respected! You were given a gift and you are tryin' to throw it away??

The biggest problem of suicide is, that it doesn't solve anything, since all you did in this life, you will carry on in the next one and so on, BUT making a suicide is a bad karmic action and you will have to pay for doing that..Therefore there is no reason to make a suicide, since it doesn't solve anything (you remember all the pain and you experience all the pain again and again)...

If it is forbidden to make a suicide with some sort of law, then at least a few people won't make a suicide that maybe would have, if this law would not exist...and in their future life, they would have realized that life is precious...

SO, I voted for NO - suicide should not be legal, because it prevents at least a few bad karmic actions