Introduction
Suicide refers to acts where people willingly end their own lives. Suicide may be self-inflicted or assisted. The perspectives to which people perceive acts of suicide vary according to religion and culture that is enjoyed by people in any given society. For instance, many western mainstream religions such as Christianity and Judaism tend to perceive suicide as an undesirable act that is caused by mental illnesses. However, certain cultures that uphold personal choices can make suicide more understandable and even in some situations honorable such as in cases where a person or a community is facing imminent persecution. Some instances where a suicide has been held to be honorable in certain societies include where people have participated in hunger strikes as part of fighting for the greater good of a community and where a person commits suicide in order to preserve the safety and honor of their family members.
Self-inflicted suicide is believed to be one of the leading causes of death in contemporary societies. Consequently, the rate and approaches to suicide may vary from a society to the next. There are many approaches that people use to kill themselves. Some of the well-known methods include intake of poisonous drugs, drug overdose, self-mutilation, self-burning, hanging or other self-suffocating methods, and the use of firearms especially in recent years.
On the other hand, assisted suicide is usually common where a person is terminally ill or where a person is not capable of causing their own death due to physical incapacity. As such, a person may seek the help of another person be it a doctor or a friend to assist them end their own suffering through death. In medical terms assisted suicide is referred to as mercy killing or euthanasia. In the United States, as of the year 2011, the only states that had laws that authorized medically-assisted suicide were Oregon, Montana, Vermont, and Washington. Some people perceive medically-assisted suicide as less cruel than other forms of assisted suicide that are carried out by persons who are not doctors and have no medical expertise.
Opinion on Suicide
People express anger and despair in different ways. There are those who hurt themselves to the point of committing suicide. In contemporary societies suicide has become a serious health concern among people of all ages but more prevalent among young people. Many people die each year from suicide and may more survive suicide attempts. However, people who are suicidal even when they survive past attempts to kill themselves eventually find a way to commit suicide. Some people have nothing against suicide but are bothered about the way people go about it. After all, since people die each day from accidents, warfare, and homicides why would a perfectly sane individual be denied an opportunity to take away their own life as and when they so wish as long as they do not do it in such a way as to offend other people?
Respecting the freedom of choice regardless of the choice is that one makes people believe that they are truly free. People are entitled to their opinions regarding personal choices but they should not interfere with a private choice where their own welfare and freedoms are not under direct threat as a consequence of the private choice. All in all, in cases where people are mentally disturbed, judicious interventions and treatment may help save those at risk of committing suicide from their predicaments.
Signs and Symptoms Relating to Suicide
There are various indicators that an individual is at the verge of committing suicide. Some of the coming signs include when a person prepares a will to ensure that their affairs are in order, sudden insistent visits to different family members and friends, purchasing items that are likely to be used in suicide such as gun, toxic drugs, medications without proper instructions, or a rope. Sudden mood variations and writing of suicidal notes can be signs that a person intends to kill themselves. Express indication that a person intends to kill him/herself to a close friend or family member is also a sign of possible future events.
Usually, the mental health professionals carry out assessments of behavioral and suicidal thoughts by evaluating the existence, severity, and the interval of the suicidal thoughts in persons suspected of intending to commit suicide. As such, besides asking questions regarding emotional challenges that a person may have been experiencing, the mental health practitioners seek information regarding the previous and present suicidal feelings, intention, and possible plans. For instance, if a person has previously attempted to commit suicide, a doctor would seek to know the circumstances that led to such as act and the possible outcome of the method that a person used in a past suicide attempt. An evaluation regarding past violent behaviors and possible past and present stressors, presence of social support, and accessibility of items that a person is likely to use to commit suicide are other considerations that health professionals seek information on before making conclusive recommendations.
Opinion on End of Life Decisions
Most people do not consider suicidal people to have the ability to make free and rational decisions to end their lives. As such, there is a popular opinion among physicians that suicidal thoughts may be caused by a myriad of factors. Among the most popular factors that are believed to culminate in suicide include previous attempts to commit suicide, drug abuse, depression or other psychological illnesses, history of suicide in the family, bullying, stressful life experiences, solitude due to incarceration, separation, or divorce, and easy access to lethal killing methods. Accordingly, it would seem that the existence of a robust social support system, the absence of psychological illnesses, as well as absence of substance abuse and bullying decrease suicidal tendencies.
Impact on the People around a Person Committing Suicide-family, Friends
The effects of suicide whether it actually occurs or it is only contemplated have devastating effects on family members and friends. Persons who lose loved ones to suicide tend to preoccupy themselves with the reason that could have led to the decision of a loved one to decide that their life was no longer important. Family members also torment themselves with questions of whether they were the contributing factor or whether they could have prevented a suicide act from taking place. There is also a feeling of rejection among the surviving family members where they think that a family member’s suicide was a way of rejecting them. Family members are also prone to stigmatization by other members of the community who may translate a suicide to mean that other family members failed to care enough for one of their own.
The surviving family members experience a range of conflicting emotions such as extreme emotional distress and sadness believing that they were helpless to prevent the sudden and profound loss. There is also intense longing for a person they lost and anger towards the departed for taking their own life and causing them so much grief. Those who were very close to the deceased may experience desolation and severely disturbing thoughts to an extent that they may suffer stress and eventually suffer severe depression. Some family members and friends believe that the deceased was selfish leading to problems and traumatic experiences for the love ones especially the immediate family members and close friends. As a matter of fact, people intending to commit suicide are believed to disregard the disturbing emotional reactions that are likely to befall their families if they proceed to kill themselves.
Impact on the Society
It is easy to dismiss suicide as a personal problem that only affects that deceased person, immediate family members, and friends. However, suicide is a problem that affects a society in various aspects. For instance, when a person commits suicide within a community such death may have a ripple effect where other people may attempt suicide as well. According to Joiner, research shows that deaths that occur within a community due to suicide tend to be more frequent in places where the media frequently communicate such news (Joiner 90). Accordingly, a close friend or relative of a person who committed suicide in the past may get emotionally overwhelmed and also commit suicide and the cycle may continue if suicidal tendencies continue unabated.
Research activities regarding the effects of suicide on society show that the occurrence of suicide especially among the high school adolescents tend to rise after a case of suicide among the teens are reported. In his research, Valois opines that schools must establish policies that respond quickly to suicide and suicidal attempts. Such policies would be important especially in educating students and other school members about the risks and signs associated with suicide. Consequently, properly coordinated policies would create awareness through established health offices and effectively address the traumatic experiences that follow when a student, a teacher, or any other member within the schools commits suicide (Valois et. al 98).
Contemporary Views on Suicide
Most people do not feel free to talk about suicide and usually dismiss incidences of suicide by blaming such occurrences on families and friends. The fact that majority of people find death an uncomfortable subject to converse leaves the problem of suicide shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Since people do not talk freely about suicide, little information is available concerning the topic and in the end many people fail to understand the subject hence are unable to prevent such occurrences.
However, those who manage to be bold enough to share their opinions regarding suicide perceive suicide as a rational and a self-centered act that do not give consideration to the problems that are likely to be experienced by their spouses, children, friends, or immediate families. Others think that suicide is an act of weakness while some believe that suicidal tendencies are a medical condition that should only be handled in hospital and mental institutions since being suicidal tendencies are sometimes associated with mental disability.
Conversely, some people hold the view that suicide is a way of gaining freedom. That any person who feels unhappy and who believe that there is no possible situation that can change their predicaments should be allowed to discontinue their suffering by all means possible even if it means committing suicide. In reply to those who argue that suicide is likely to cause immense suffering to the friends and families of the persons who commit suicide, some people believe that even if a person were to spare his life for the sake of others the loved ones will still suffer emotionally if and when they learn of the predicament that a person is going through and indeed that it would be selfish for the so called loved ones to deny a person that they love to end his/her suffering.
Accordingly, there are those who hold the view that a person’s life and body is that person’s property. Since everybody has his own life and experiences it would be wrong and even unfair force a person to continue suffering and that those who label people who commit suicide as selfish do so from a point of ignorance since they have never ‘been there’.
Whether to Legalize Assisted Suicide from a Freedom of Choice Perspective
Though previously most people considered that talk about suicide and death as a taboo topic, more people are now expressing their opinions regarding the subject. Some people are now challenging the concern be the public over what is considered a personal choice. Here, the issues of autonomy and rationality regarding suicide emerge with some people arguing that the decision whether to commit suicide should be left to individual’s rational thoughts and others argue that autonomy and rationality concepts are not compelling enough to warrant an automatic right to suicide (Clarke 457).
Conversely, those who oppose the legalization of assisted suicide do so by quoting various grounds spanning religious to mental instability. They believe that the work of a physician is to assist in prolonging the life of a sick person hence doctors should focus on finding a cure rather than assisting a person to die. Further to this, they argue that sick people are incapable of making rational choices. With regard to religion, some people argue that it is God who gives life and it is him who should take away the life of a person.
Over the past few years, various studies have been undertaken in a bid to understand various ways of dealing with suicide. Some of these studies include the neurobiological studies relating to the brain mechanisms that are likely to increase or minimize suicide risks, genetic studies aimed at illuminating the suicide risk elements as well as inherent and genetics of suicide in families, psychological studies that make it possible to understand and identify the risk aspects and possible warning signs, and clinical studies that relate to the treatment as researchers assess the effectiveness of clinical interventions such as medications, psychotherapies, and related biological interventions that focus on the reduction of suicidal behavior and the risk factors.
Work Cited
Clarke, David. "Autonomy, Rationality and the Wish to Die." Journal of Medical Ethics, 25(6):
1999, 457-462.
Joiner Jr., Thomas E. "The Clustering and Contagion of Suicide." Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 8 (3): 1999, 89-92.
Valois, Robert, Keith Zullig, E. Scott Huebner, and J. Wanzer Drane. "Life Satisfaction and
Suicide Among High School Adolescents." Social Indicators Research, 66 (1): 2004, 81-105.
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Our Research. n.d. Web. 8 March, 2014.
https://www.afsp.org/research/our-research
