Argument: Suicide is a selfish act that causes suffering to others

Suicide is an entirely selfish act that causes immense pain and suffering for those loved ones that are left behind. It is also cowardly; rather than facing your problems and being strong, you instead take the easy way out and kill yourself. It is important, therefore, to instil a strong sense of responsibility to one’s family and for one’s affairs and to do this by punishing those who try and fail to perpetrate this selfish and cowardly act.

Candidate 1: "Suicide is different from abortion or cloning or euthanasia in the important respect that it involves only one individual and his choice about the way he lives (and by extension, when he dies). So we can deny any link to these other phenomena. In addition, we can defend suicide on the same basis as one might plausibly and robustly defend all the others: on the basis of the value of individual autonomy. Human dignity is a value that is inextricably linked to the free exercise of individual autonomy; it is the absence of autonomy and the domination of another man over the slave that makes slavery a clear violation of basic human dignity."
Candidate 2: "This is not the role of the criminal law

Criminal legislation is not the vehicle for society’s pronouncements on questions of how one should live one’s life. It instead involves the entirely practical exercise of ensuring that individuals are able to live freely and enjoy their freedom without fear of external interferences like theft, violence or murder. Criminal legislation should guarantee a safe space for autonomous individual action - like suicide."
Candidate 3: "The question whether or not human life is "sacred" should not intrude on the issue of suicide legislation because no clear proof is possible one way or the other. We respect human rights because we value the liberty and autonomy of individuals; we want to be able to make our own decisions and we likewise affirm the right of others to make their own decisions. The free, autonomous decision to take one’s own life should be respected as a legitimate exercise of one’s individual liberty. Human liberty is sacrosanct and should only be limited where clear social harm is caused; suicide affects only the individual and so it should be permitted"
Candidate 4: "Society can perfectly well spread the message that suicide is not a valid life choice without criminalizing and punishing those that have tried and failed to perpetrate it. Moreover, we have grave doubts about the practical use of anti-suicide legislation. It is highly dubious that people who are driven to contemplate suicide will be dissuaded by the knowledge that they would be breaking the law. The spectre of punishment only awaits those who fail to commit suicide. These people have already decided that their lives are not worth living; branding them criminal and punishing them is hardly likely to make them reconsider their decision."
Candidate 5: "We are all dying

Death is an inevitable fact of life. We will all die. Suicide is therefore not a matter of choosing between life and death per se, but of choosing the time and manner of death one wishes. We would all prefer a painless death over a slow and agonising one, and it is better to be able to prepare oneself and if possible anyone else who will be affected, so why should the difference between the two be a matter of luck and not one of choice?"
Candidate 6: "This is only an objection to particular cases of suicide; it cannot be made into a general case because some suicides really do only affect the individual – those in which there is no extended family or friendship group. And that an act is, on occasion, selfish is not sufficient grounds to prohibit it. Indeed, ostracising one’s friends or walking out on one’s family can upset people but we are hardly likely to deny people the liberty to make such individual, private life choices. Nobody has the right to force people to live in circumstances that cause them unhappiness. Suicide should be viewed in exactly the same way.

Moreover it should be remembered that an attempt to prosecute survivors or in some way to punish relatives of those who succeed is clearly not going to help leaving grieving relatives in a worse position. [1]

[1] Holt, ‘When Suicide was illegal’, 2011"
Candidate 7: "The right to life means a right to death

When we speak of the right to life it means more than merely the right to be alive, it encompasses the right to self-ownership, the notion that one’s life is one’s own and that you are not beholden to anyone else by the mere fact that you are alive. It follows from this that there can be no duty on anyone to live beyond a point of their own choosing, and there should be no attempt to interfere with suicidal behaviour whether by individuals or by the law. [1]

[1] Chobli, Michael, ‘Suicide’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward n. Zalta (ed.), Fall 2009, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/#LibVieRigSui"

This is only an objection to particular cases of suicide; it cannot be made into a general case because some suicides really do only affect the individual – those in which there is no extended family or friendship group. And that an act is, on occasion, selfish is not sufficient grounds to prohibit it. Indeed, ostracising one’s friends or walking out on one’s family can upset people but we are hardly likely to deny people the liberty to make such individual, private life choices. Nobody has the right to force people to live in circumstances that cause them unhappiness. Suicide should be viewed in exactly the same way.

Moreover it should be remembered that an attempt to prosecute survivors or in some way to punish relatives of those who succeed is clearly not going to help leaving grieving relatives in a worse position. [1]

[1] Holt, ‘When Suicide was illegal’, 2011
