Legality of Suicide and Assisted Suicide

Suicide has become a big part of American society, year after year more people are taking their own lives for many different reasons. A lot of philosophers have broken down all the reasons of suicides into two different categories, rational suicide and irrational suicide. A rational suicide has been given five basic criteria that usually must be met for the person's act to be considered rational. The five criteria which a person

must show for their suicide to be considered rational are, "the ability to reason, realistic world view, adequacy of information, avoidance of harm, and accordance with fundamental interests."(Battin 132) Another opinion of rationality of suicide is, "it is the best thing for him from the point of view of his own welfare-or whether it is the best thing for someone being advised, from the point of view of that person's welfare"(Brandt 118). People have to characterize suicides because a lot of times they don't understand what that person is going through so by grouping them and placing criteria on them it allows them to accept it in an easier manner.

A lot of suicides are grouped in the rational category because they are committed so the person can be saved from the pain they may be experiencing from a terminal disease. This seems to be just about the only true rational and morally correct reason why a person should commit suicide. Yet a lot of times these patients are "heavily sedated, so that it is impossible for the mental processes of decision leading to action to occur."(Brandt 123) In other words these patients have a rational reason to commit suicide, yet their mind is not capable of making that decision.

So if terminally ill patients are the only ones who have a good rational reason to commit suicide, then where does that leave everyone else? Well just about everyone else commits suicide because of a little thing that enters everyone's life at some time and that thing is called depression. Depression can come from several different things, such as a

loss of something like a job, a loved one, a limb such as an arm or leg, or anything else that might be held dear to that person. Other things could be rejection at home or in the work place, abuse, and sometimes even the thought of getting old and not wanting to know what tomorrow holds in store.