While i think if someone is contemplating suicide we should look at society and how it treats them to see what their possible motives are i think they should have the right to commit suicide.

Its always sad when someone you know commits suicide and i think all should be done to try and prevent them but no one should have the right to deny or criminalize someone who attempts suicide since it is their body and life.

to stop suicides we should work to reduce(and hopefully eliminate) poverty and other negative aspects of society, not punish those or the families of those who try to escape or give up on society and life.

This to be seems like a basic human right. Furthermore, if people that want to die are forced to live, they will become spiteful of the society that condemns them. People that are spiteful of their own society, that also want to die, are liable to take a lot of people out with them when they go.

Only if the person is deemed to have a good mental health and psychological condition, and I also think it should be reserved to those in extreme pain and the elderly.

Even if you disagree, it should still be allowed only because if the individual really wants to die, they will die. My friends grandmother stopped eating. My grandfather tried to stop taking his insulin. Others try overdosing etc. At least assistant suicide relieves the extra unnecessary suffering, and allows a family to become aware, pay their respects, and find closure as opposed to a surprise telephone call.

Suicide and assisted suicide should be legal. Like prostitution or drugs, it's impossible to stop, expensive to regulate, and futile to try to and administer. However, the post-suicide response is what should really be under debate. Hypothetically, if person decides to commit suicide by ramming into a redwood or state-constructed bridge, who will pay for the damage? The taxpayers? The family?

By legalizing suicide, it's clearly a step forward -- it's not simply ignoring a problem that clearly exists. However, it IS something that is an economic problem. Expensive recovery and relief needs to be conducted, to prevent lakes or river filling up with destroyed cars with dead bodies inside them. There should be a fine imposed on the deceased's family to try and deter the member of the family about to commit suicide from an "expensive" suicide, to a method of Euthanasia which is controlled and safe.

My life, my right to die, bitches.

moar people dead = less people we have to worry about.

Yes.

Humans should be able to end their life when they so choose. To be fair, such a person should undergo psychological testing and a waiting period should be forced before the individual will be assisted to safeguard against a sociological copy crisis. Also; the individual should receive the proper understanding for his situation and further aid in rectifying any such situation leading to suicidal tendencies. In the end though, the individual must have freedom to end its life if it so chooses.

People are able to control their lives as they see fit. If they choose to end their life, so be it. Let them do as they please as long as nobody else is harmed in the process.

Depends what the scenario is.

1. If the person is critically ill and has no chance of survival, then yes it should be legal

2. But if they have got a high chance of survival then am not too sure if suicide or assisted suicide should be taken into consideration.

Lets say you write a will, and in that will you ask to be lethaly injected if you become a vegetable.

What would YOU as the doctor do? Let the human being live in misery not being able to control when he pisses, or take the human being out of his misery?

First off suicide is not illegal. Assisted suicide is but not the act or the completion of suicide.

If someone is in severe pain or has a terminal illness and does not wish to continue life to the point where it will get real bad then assisted suicide is fine. You want to savor the good life you have before you died, not the life of pain or hooked to machines or sick all the time.

I don't believe it should be used for someone who is just fed up with life or has had a bad life or just can't find any other way to handle their problems.

I have worked in nursing homes for 16 years and have seen alot of people dies long painful deaths. If I were unable to end my own pain I would hope someone would do so for me. If I have no quality of life then please end it for me. Granted some people will take that to the extreme and end it too soon. That is wrong. I am talking about on my death bed with no hope for recovery. But that is a personal choice. And I have also seen people come back from what doctors thought was death.

Yes suicide assistance should be leagaliszed because if someone is to depressed to live in the world then they should be able to kill themselves. and if someone want to have someone else kill them then why not let them except they should have somthing written down to prove that they let them. because if they dont then they could be charged of murder.

If the person isn't a teenager, after their physical development ends, and they reach a certain level of maturity, suicide should be allowed. Assisted suicide should only be allowed if the person that wishes to die is physically unable to do the deed.

Just as every person in this planet is "free" to do anything in their will, it's also the same for every person to be free religiously and ultimately choose to view life sacred or not.

But in the context of assistance of suicide, it does appear to be murder in some ways but that is thrown off with the fact that it IS with the consent of the person ending his life.

And I really don't get the whole point of suicide being illegal.. .how do you punish someone who's already.. . dead?

Imagine... your father is terminally ill wand living every day in chronic pain. Every doctor agreed he is going to die, so the whole family is just waiting, watching him suffer, feeling helpless and pitying his condition. He's unable to walk, unable to work, and can't even use the bathroom without help. He's in constant pain and unable to enjoy anything. Everyday he gets worse and still you claim "But he's alive. Every glance from him seems to ask, "Can I go now?" The fight is lost. You look at him and wish you could just take the pain away--just get it over with. But you selfishly make your beloved parent live in continued torture. You vainly drain the family's physical, emotional, and financial resources for just one more day, week, month of his so-called life. But all he really wants is to make it stop. Please... stop the pain...