The answer is rather strange and depends on your perspective on the validity of suicide, ie can it be a rational choice?
If you believe there's no such thing as an okay suicide then implicitly you're saying the suicidal don't have the same rights and free will as anyone else. The biomedical model of mental illness can be used to prove that suicidal feelings are a spurious product of a damaged brain. It is insane to be suicidal and the suicidal therefore do not have the same freedom as normal people.
In fact most people who think like this don't directly refer to the classic prototype of mental illness. They simply can't conceive or empathise with the suicidal and don't want suicidal people to die. Nonetheless the implicit accusation is the suicidal are not of a right mind. Their minds or brains are damaged such that the free choice to die (painlessly, reliably, peacefully and with dignity) is not, for want of another phrase, right minded. Their minds and free will are less than that of a normal person; they're less than a normal person so there's no validity in their choice to die.
Those who think the other way, the way which validates suicide and precipitates the position that suicide should be legalised, make the judgement that the suicidal are equal to a normal person so have the same rights of liberty. This liberty includes legal assisted suicide or euthanasia.
Simply, the suicidal are not subhuman. They may be hard to understand. They may be suicidal because of a damaging life process (or several). But most of all they're human just like anyone else so they have the liberty to die and should be offered the right way to die rather than the cornucopia of horrible ways to die in the current decriminalised suicide milieu.
- sent from a tablet
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