I was not thinking in terms of suicide or assisted suicide when I was talking to Karen but I can see the connection you are making.
"If you find yourself lingering over the mental picture...then I am perhaps not the best example to put before you... :-)"
lol ... that wasn't what I was doing... I smell the potential for hypothetical here.
I definitely agree that there are fates worse than death.
First, I don't consider death a bad fate at all, since it is inevitable. The fear of the unknown is what makes most people fear death. People who don't fear death are the ones most likely to commit noble acts even when faced with the prospect of their own death.
Is it suicide to stand up and defy an injustice knowing it means almost sure death to you? If so, that would be a form of choice to die that I would endorse.
The others are very individual and its hard to lump them into one general statement making them OK. There are many (most) suicides are committed during a moment of transient despondency. If we approve this, then we fail to live up to our obligations to eliminate the suffering and do what we can to aid their well being.
If there are situations that are unique and exceptional enough that assisted suicide is a mercy (hypothetically), then those committing the acts must take responsibility for it, knowing that society may not ever be able to reconcile the deed. In the war example, the killer cannot prove the fate worse than death of the person he killed since the worse than death experience did not occur, and if he killed himself also there is no effective litigation in all practicality. If I were to come to know of such an instance (after the fact), I would not condemn or condone the specific circumstance, since the persons had already passed from my sphere of influence.
I would retain an opinion in general about how people should behave when in a fear enriched situation. I encourage people to keep hope for a change to the better and to take a stand against injustice. The fear of fates worse than death for me are the ones in which I might find my self becoming a perp. I am aware that people can be provoked into do some pretty nasty things that cause regret. Some of this regret can be extreme, hard to shake, and often is the the motivation to consider suicide. I hope and pray for the strength to live with my mistakes long enough to make them right. That can be hard, and it often separates bravery from cowardly in an extreme test of character. I suspect your references to fate worse than death were something more along the lines of torture. That's a little different. |
