Suicide by JMcQ

Suicide is a touchy subject, it is true. I’ve been lucky, and none of my friends have committed suicide that I know of; a few have died through drug overdose or a coronary, but nothing as self-inflicted as suicide. I may be characterized as callous or an asshole for saying this, but I feel that it is disrespectful to the memories of those who have committed suicide by calling them “cowards”. The act itself may be construed as cowardly in some cases, but this is not a good way to categorize the efforts of some valiant people. The psychological effort that it takes to commit one’s self to commit the act is tremendous; after all, the person that is doing it is choosing never to live again. Many individuals mull over the act for an extended period of time, and eventually choose to do it. This is not to say that the hurt of the families and friends of the individual should be lessened in any way; rather the pain should and will always exist.

During the writing of this piece ,my mother told me about an older person who used to work at the local library. Learning that ey had Alzheimer’s, ey decided to kill eirself rather than put eir whole family through years of dotage and sadness, seeing their parent/compatriot in a rapidly-declining state of affairs. Likewise, the self-assisted suicide debate (which has be ignored largely since the incarceration of Dr. Jack Kevorkian) is one of valorous and intrepid individuals, rather than a host of cowards. If the individuals, old, infirm and chronically ill, wish to die and take the burden of their maintenance off their family, I really cannot see where that is anything but valorous. It seems to even smack of the sacrifice that has been heralded as such a civic value since even the days of Rome, since Mucius. Exactly how that act was turned around into a lack of individual bravery I’ll never know.

Now, I’m not saying that individuals should wantonly kill themselves, but I can completely see instances in which it should be a viable option. If the individual’s ailment is operable, if the individual is a large burden through the family in another way (is mentally deficient), or cannot share eir own burden of the family’s fianances, suicide should be a discussed option. This should not be done alone, but rather after long periods of discussion in which individuals can rationalize and normalize the fact that someone is going to die. All it needs are a few intrepid individuals to start the ball rolling; Dr. Jack Kevorkian was one of those individuals, but the reactionary, evangelical right was able to paint Kevorkian in such a light to place eir in jail for ten to twenty-five years. Kevorkian was supposed to be able to apply for parole in April of 2005; there has been no announcements when exactly that may happen.

With death demystified (which would be a large jump especially since the numerical majority of Christians in America believe that suicide is an original sin), science could be able to move away from providing a few months of life to those individuals who are quite often over the hill to being able to focus their energies on extending lives by years. Perhaps a cure for AIDS has been held back due to the efforts of a selected bunch of fuddy-duddies vainly clasping on for life, not really living but not dead yet. If humanity is valued just as a chronological thing, would it not make more sense to create some cure for a disease that allows individuals to live a full life (and not die in their twenties or thirties) than some medicine to allow a vegetable to live on for 14 more days? I can see the reluctance of pulling the plug on a family member, but the lack of compassion shown by individuals like the family of Terry Schiavo in prolonging the prison cell-life of Terry is criminal.