[Skybird]

Where one can assume somebody considers suicide and makes the deicison in a confused, disarranged state of mind due to a pyschological symptom/syndrome or intoxication, intervention can be justified. It may indeed be a mistaken decision then, or a cry for help, what in German is called "appellative suicide", with the real intention to find death having to be put into question.

Problem is psychologists tend to see ALL suicide attempts as cries for help only, as "appellative suicides".

But where somebody makes a calm, reasonable decision while mentally being obviously not handicapped, nobody has the right to judge that person and to hinder it. It is his life, not yours, and his decision, not yours. You have no claims to make for him. He does not owe you obedience to your moral views, you do not possess him.

You must not even judge him. Who are you to judge and make a verdict about the most ultimate and final decision a living being can make? And can you ever be certain to be in knowledge of all the relevant facts and factors that led that individual to that decision? Have you been inside his life, his thinking, his experiencing? Do you know how he get where he is, what made him what he is? You know almost nothing.

Thanathology was a special interest of mine long time ago,and I dealt with people with NDEs, but also with old, dying people a bit, and sometimes with their relatives or friends. I found that often those saying "he is a coward", "she has no right to do this", did so because of narcissistic, selfish reasons. They could not stand that somebody refused what they themselves considered to be worthy, and occasionally somebody even could not stand that the other was evading his desire to control him.

I personally find it "stupid" if people who suffer from some painful disease and know they will die a mean death in the end, think they must hold out as long a possible, ending up with their last months spent in hospital beds, with great pain, boredom, and the perspective of death before their eyes anyway. But hey, that ius my view, and it must not be theirs. I leave them the freedom to suffer as long as they want.

Since some years I know that is a fate that looms in my own future for sure, too. And I have already made according decisions and arrangements myself. You do not win praise or fame by holding out in agony as long as possible, there is nothing to win, nor is it an experience that ennobles you in any way or strengthens you, nor does it matter to you once you are gone - all that MAYBE would be factors to consider if only you'd survive it, but when death bis certain anyway, you win nothing and your suffering means nothing.

I believe in the life that is being enjoyed, not in a life that is being suffered.

Ethically, also there is no aregument against suicide deciisona made in a rational state of mind. He who does so while being old or ill, removes himself from the list of burdens for others. That alone clears any issue that might be raised by some. How should that not be an expression of claiming your right for freedom and free decision making?

I refer to David Hume, Jean Améry, Emile Cioran.

With determination and anger I stand up to everybody denying the right of suicide to somebody due to his personal relgious beliefs. The religious beliefs of a person are that person'S personal problem only, and nobody elses'. Somebody may claim that his deity owns all life and that man has no right to dodge that deity's property right, but that is a belief by the person only who holds that belief. No claim for other people is to be made on its' grounds.

I collided repeatedly with two Christian priests in a hospital where I once made a multi-months practical. There arrogance and hunger for control over people's life was unbearable. Thankfully I had a very humane boss there who covered me when I attacked them, because they wanted to see me getting fired. I later learned a Franciscan monk with whom I even befriended for some years (until his monastery here in the city was shut down) who although no agreeing in full with my views nevertheless hard partial sympathy and tolerated what I said, because he saw the quality of compassion and free will in my argument.

I wonder what became of him, we lost contact. We had some good hours and some really hot discussions - but it always was hot over the matter, not personal, and it never went so far as to leave the grounds of constructive intention. Great guy that was! He really gave me fire.

And a real great and noble man I had the luck to know once, told me this, and it is something like an unwirtten motto in my life: "Mensch-sein? Haltung bewahren, den Blick nicht abwenden."