Anyone ever seen Soylent Green? The suicide center?
Canada (and other countries) are moving towards legalized suicide with assisted death legislation. Just the elderly in 'rational suicide' cases. And I very much doubt that will ever change.
The whole idea of the state helping people off themselves is a little squirrelly to me. Chronic pain/debilitating disease.. I can see the sense in it. But other than that.. not really. The state is not responsible for your happiness or your life. Nor do the vast majority of people condone suicide. That doesn't mean people don't reach a point where it isn't the best option. But you can't expect others and the state to help you. You are free to kill yourself. You really are. But this fact doesn't stop people and organizations wanting absolutely nothing to do with it. If you want to die; no one can stop you.
For me, this is one of the strangest themes here.. that killing yourself is someone else's responsibility. That isn't freedom, it's the opposite.
I'd be lying if I said a suicide center isn't something I'd seriously consider if it existed. But there is no way I'd ever be angry or upset that they don't.
Surely, helping other people in general is no one's responsibility, really. But that's not the world we live in, thankfully. One of the traits of human beings in this world is that they care about people and things, and feel dedicated to various causes. curing cancer, helping the homeless, stopping abortion, making it easier to -get- abortions (lol), reducing pollution, etc. The list goes on and on. People want to help people and make the world better. At least most people seem to. It just so happens that when it comes to suicide, people are almost entirely fixated on trying to prevent it, as opposed to there being an opposition (sort of like abortion) with people trying to help people do it.
As for soylent green, I've thought about that movie a few times before. Someone in another thread stated that they thought that government or company run suicide would be bad for the economy because it'd be killing all the consumers. I suppose that's a fair point. But I've often thought that if assisted suicide were to be made into a business (not like this would ever happen) it could flourish in the economy. I mean I suppose they could do it like they did in soylent green and make them into food, or the company that kills people could outsource that part of it to another company, but regardless, I see other potential benefits. A whole new industry means more jobs, which is always good.
I can't speak for everybody who is incredibly suicidal, but speaking for myself, I am pretty much a blight on society. I don't contribute anything at the moment, and throughout my life I haven't contributed much other than a few odd jobs here and there. I think it might be fair to say that a lot of people with debilitating depression are the same way; they're so apathetic and miserable that they just can't do much of anything, so eliminating them could potentially save a lot of wasted consumption of materials (food and stuff). It would also contribute towards reducing overpopulation. So those are some of my thoughts on the matter.