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 If
you are currently thinking about suicide, please see your doctor and tell
him about it. Someday you will be very glad you did. It may be that you are
suffering from the illness called
depression
- which is very curable with proper medication and counseling. There are also
suicide hotlines on the internet that have information that can help
you. If you are someone who has lost a loved one, there is an excellent
website on grief and
bereavement to help survivors cope with their loss.
Many people have the mistaken
belief that suicide is a one-way ticket to hell. This is often traced
to faulty religious dogma or cultural influences. After all, what really is
the definition of suicide? Is falling on a grenade to save the lives of
others an act of suicide?
Was it suicide when Jesus decided to have himself killed? Is a person
who is constantly feeding a junk food habit committing suicide? What about a
hopelessly terminally ill patient who wants to spare himself and his family
from suffering for a long period of time? What about a person who commits
suicide resulting from a serious mental illness or depression? Is choosing
to be born into this world, itself, and act of suicide, knowing that this
choice results in death?
Near-death experiences are
giving society answers to such questions. In general, near-death experiences
reveal that the quality of our lives after death isn't determined by HOW we
die, but by how we LIVE. Unfortunately, many suicides cause devastating
emotional damage to families that can last a lifetime. This is the REAL
tragedy. While near-death experiences show that suicide, in itself, has
spiritual consequences that are no different from other ways of dying, it
does show that there are penalties for hurting others.
And last but not least, this
section will discuss a person's right to control their own life and death
and the strong legal case for allowing people who are facing intractable
pain or indignities in the final stages of their lives to determine for
themselves when life is no longer worth living. Such people should be
allowed to receive assistance in ending their lives preferably through their
own physician. The right-to-die case is based on the principles of liberty,
autonomy, equality, dignity, and unnecessary suffering.
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