The ethics of suicide

A couple of days after Junior Seau, the football player, killed himself, his mother apparetnly stood on the stoop of her home, answering questions from the media while wild with grief. (I say apparently because I didnt watch it, and shouldnt have had to. Shame om the media for putting these pictures of grief on display.)

Anyway, some CBSportsline commentator wrote about this scene, saying - this is why people shouldn't commit suicide. Look at the pain you cause your mother.

And that's okay as far as it goes.

But whenever anyone commits suicide, people get on the message boards and say how "selfish" they were to commit suicide, how, apparently, they should just go on living their miserable existence regardless of how unhappy they were, just because if they put themselves out of their miseries, their families would be unhappy.

Now, granted, many people commit suicide needlessly, because they have undiagnosed depression that literally doesn't allow them to think straight. And you'd think their family members would be able to recognize such signs of depression and get them help.

And of course there are the teenagers, their hormones raging, who commit suicide because their parents won't let them marry the one they love, or not even that - the person they're in love with doesn't love them back. And yeah, those kinds of suicides are stupid.

But there is another kind. There are folks who simply have nothing to live for, are suffering, and wish to end their suffering. And they have the right to do so, regardless of how that'd make any of their family members feel.

I remember many years ago, all the fuss about Terry Schiavo, a woman in a vegetative state who did nothing but lay in bed all day. Other people had to feed her, other people had to bathe her, other people had to clothe her. Those who didn't want her put out of her misery (if indeed she was conscious of being in misery) said, "We don't know if she's brain dead. Maybe inside that brain she's thinking away.)

And I'm thinking, jesus christ, all the more reason to euthanize her. What kind of a living hell is that, to be totally dependent on other people for everything, to be able to think but not to be able to commicate. At least Stephen Hawking can communicate with people! Can communicate his wants and needs! Can have conversations with people!

I remember at the time, when Rush was championing the cause of leaving this woman in her living hell, that he should submit to an experiment. We all know how he loves to talk - it's his whole life. And while he doesn't believe in exercise for exercise's sake, he loves to golf. And he loves to take trips to various places.

So, take that all away from him for a week. He - or anyone who doesn't want a comotose person to be put out of their misery - should be injected with some kind of perfectly safe drug that will keep them immobile for precisely one week. Immobile - but with their mind active. And then - put them in a hospital bed in a ward of the same kind as Terry Shiavo or other folks of that nature - i.e. no round the clock nurse care or family presence.

So - you itch? You can't scratch it, and no one else knows you're itching so they can't scratch it either.
Hungry? Too bad?
Hate the taste of the food you're giving you? Too bad, you can't say so.
Have to go to the bathroom! Catheter full? Oh, dear, what a mess.
Bored out of your mind? Don't worry. In another couple of hours someone will come and read a book to you.
Don't like that book? Infuritated by that book? Too bad, you can't say so, so they're going to keep reading it to you.
Don't like utter strangers heaving you around washing your private parts? Too bad.
I coild go on and on.

Then there's the folks who have chronic pain. Sure, they can communicate - unless they're in such a drugged induced stupor that they don't have the energy to do so.

Who has the right to tell anybody how much physical agony they should have to bear before putting themselves out of their misery? If their families loved them, they'd help the process, not hinder it.

(And yes, regardless of why you commit suicide, you should leave a note to explain. Apparently, most women leave notes, most men don't. That's men....always thinking of themselves and their wants and needs first without caring about others.  ; )