At one time people were afraid that the normalization of suicide would lead to eugenics coming back. Doctors could easily order your death if you so wish or forcibly euthanized you out of convenience. I think the normalization of suicide can be both bad and good. Bad because you have shitty human beings with massive egos playing God with your life, good in the way that terminal people or mentally ill people can relieve their suffering. The world is too complex and difficult to navigate the normalization of suicide in a healthy manner.
In Feudal Japan, the act of committing seppuku was to honor the family and not bring shame. It was used in a philosophical aspect of life that ending will not tarnish your family history. Family was very important in Japan. It was practiced all the way into WW2 when the Japanese refused to be captured by the Americans.
Suicide in antiquity has been done over and over with many cultures accepting it. It wasn't until Christianity was involved when suicide was forbidden and start changing attitudes around it. Christianity favored self-preservation before God because God made you in his image, therefore killing yourself meant that you hate his image. The belief that you would suffer eternal damnation for killing yourself made everyone fear death. The fact that suicide was so prevalent in the old days, that suicide was considered a greater sin than adultery or murder. You could murder someone, but get placed in a lower circle of hell than you would if you killed yourself. Killing yourself placed you in the 9th circle. No wonder if spooked people into suffering endlessly because the belief that Jesus suffered more than you would ever have to endure.
Lost my train of thought.....rambling done.
I completely agree, and you definitely worded by thoughts better than I could've worded it myself.
As I'm a Christian, I believe in self-preservation. However, I believe that the Bible never said that you would suffer "eternal damnation" for killing yourself. As long as you accept Jesus as your savior, you will go to heaven. All of your sins, past, present and future, will be forgiven, even if you kill yourself. The only unpardonable sin is associating God's work with those of Satan's.
Despite me believing in self-preservation, I do understand that some terminally ill people would want euthanasia. If I were to have an illness that would cause me massive suffering and pain and would lead to a 100% chance of death, then I would want euthanasia, too. So in a way, the normalization of suicide could be a good thing for people who want euthanasia.
On the other hand, there's been many people saying that they're glad they survived their suicide attempts. If suicide were normalized, it would probably be a lot easier for one to get their hands on poison, firearms, and other methods to cause death. That means people would be less likely to think hard about the choice to end their lives, and their choice to suicide would be a lot more impulsive than not. If suicide methods were harder to come across and suicide were not normalized, then many people would decide to continue to live (because of the lack of methods), and in the future, they may look back on their life and be glad that they survived. And like I said before, I'm a Christian, so I do not believe that one should attempt suicide. You should embrace yourself as you were created in the image of God, and God loves you just the way you are.