Legalizing suicide is a rather thought provoking topic. It not only asks about the fundamental value of life, but also questions the role of state in protecting an individual. The author has touched on all these issues in the past, but they are worth revisiting for a few moments.

What is Life?

Life has been defined by many groups as many different things. The religious right believes single human cells from vireo-fertilization are life. Likewise, they believe that fetuses with no experience or understanding of life are alive. These groups are willing to go so far in protecting human objects, that they are willing to prevent meaningful stem-cell research, doctor assisted suicide, and pregnancy abortions which would improve human freedom and dignity.

The left has not proposed a good explanation for life. They often waffle about the issue of life, as demonstrated with stem-cells and abortion. For liberals, some killing of humans is acceptable but it must be limited. Liberals will accept the killing of fetuses in abortion. Most liberals agree that killing children and adults are not acceptable, sometimes to a stronger degree then the religious right. Much pacifist thought professed by liberals is grounded in a hatred for unnecessary killing.

The alternative to the religious right and liberal definition of life has been proposed in the past: Life as the Freedom of the Individual. An individual is alive as long as he is free to make his own choices. Deny his autonomy, then you might as well kill him. Such a theory accepts suicide as a way to liberate an individual trapped in a non-free world, as long as such a decision is made through sane deliberations. This definition is outside of societal norms, but it might provide a necessarily alternative.

What is the Role of the State?

One definition of the role of the state is protecting the common good and to liberate the individual from the tyranny of the majority. That definition can be can construed in different ways in regards to the politics of suicide. The traditional one defines suicide as a crime against society, the stealing of one's life from the good of everyone else.

That argument has merit in the sense that every individual touches every other one in one way or another. They may have never met, but a individual's actions or lack therefore of can have a significant impact. For example, your car breaks down on the highway. Somebody stops to help you. He unwittingly avoids an accident that would have otherwise seriously injured him, by stopping a few minutes before a drunk driver would have otherwise hit him three blocks down on the highway.

That is far from a compelling reason to involve the state. The odd chance that something might or might not happen is too far fetched to be the basis of law. Another idea is that the individual is special and must be protected for a good given right. If the bible is a sacred text and should be the basis for law, then that reason is compelling on it's face. That is true in Islamic societies which put a great emphasis on the Koran as a justification for the law. Such an explanation works poorly for a secular society like America.

The real reason America bans sucide is it defined as a behavior of the mentally ill. Indeed, the majority of sucides you read about in the paper are from eccentrics, the depressed, and people who easily fit into the label known as Schizophrenia. We prohibit sucidal thoughts and actions in section 9-43 of the Mental Hygiene law or at least require such people to get guidance from a state sanctioned insitution. Nobody has ever defined good grounds for sucide, nor decided that it is sane in some cases.