When Safety Becomes Slavery: Negative Rights and the Cruelty of Suicide Prevention (Petition to the UK government included)

[existentialgoof]

Please see my recent blog post, which gained some traction on the Philosophy subreddit. At the end of the post is a petition for residents of the UK to abolish suicide prevention initiatives that violate consent (including means restrictions policies, which make it difficult to access effective suicide methods): https://schopenhaueronmars.com/2022...rights-and-the-cruelty-of-suicide-prevention/

You can see the discussion on r/philosophy here:

If you are resident in the UK, please also sign the petition at the end of the post. It requires 5 signatures to be reviewed and only has 4 signatures so far, despite the relatively large volume of attention that the post received on Reddit. I think that if it reaches 10,000 signatures, it will receive a response (probably a peremptory one telling us that suicide prevention is necessary for the safety of the mentally feeble, but a response nonetheless).

 

[jodes2]

I can't find the petition

 

[hush hush]

I can't find the petition

Petition: Allow people the legally codified right to access effective suicide methods.

I want the government to remove any barriers to accessing effective suicide method such as Philip Nitschke's Sarco device, or lethal barbiturates. This is in line with the European Court of Human Rights Article 8 of Respect for Private Life and to protect negative liberty rights.

petition.parliament.uk

@FuneralCry You also live in the UK, so I hope this is helpful to you.

 

[BipolarExpress]

I'm not in the UK, but I support your work against coercive anti-suicide measures. If they want to save lives, they can start by improving the conditions (e.g., financial struggles, homelessness, social isolation, discrimination, unemployment, debt) that lead to suicidality, rather than restricting people's choices if they feel that life is too much for them. By focusing on restricting means and forcing people into hospitalization, they're putting the cart before the horse.

 

[jodes2]

Signed. Unfortunately I don't think anything can come of it. They won't even acknowledge requests for euthanasia for the terminally ill, they certainly won't be making SN or N more available. The war on drugs is in full swing, they're even considering making cannabis class A, punishible by more prison than a pedophile gets for raping a child

 

[existentialgoof]

I'm not in the UK, but I support your work against coercive anti-suicide measures. If they want to save lives, they can start by improving the conditions (e.g., financial struggles, homelessness, social isolation, discrimination, unemployment, debt) that lead to suicidality, rather than restricting people's choices if they feel that life is too much for them. By focusing on restricting means and forcing people into hospitalization, they're putting the cart before the horse.

Thanks. I'm all in favour of measures that will help people to find life worth living, and will therefore prevent suicides. But the current mode of suicide prevention is that you prevent the suicide by denying access to the means by which to bring it about, and that in itself is enough.

 

[Alayna]

The culture of life assures them that not only should they not feel guilty, but that they are also positively deserving of moral approbation for triggering an intervention which just happens to also secure a benefit for themselves.

This spoke to me.

Thank you for opening this topic up to a wider audience and articulating or coagulating what many of us here feel. It's a well considered and structured take, with good use of analogy and contrast, and its integration with a bit of activism is welcome. I'm glad you're drawing in some listeners.

As an aside, I do see what you were doing with the abortion comparison but don't feel it was entirely necessary - there's more than enough sound argumentation here without piggybacking on contentions surrounding a rather vulnerable social movement. But that's more a matter of taste than reasoning, and is in any case a nitpick.

Much appreciated read. Keep writing.

 

[existentialgoof]

This spoke to me.

Thank you for opening this topic up to a wider audience and articulating or coagulating what many of us here feel. It's a well considered and structured take, with good use of analogy and contrast, and its integration with a bit of activism is welcome. I'm glad you're drawing in some listeners.

As an aside, I do see what you were doing with the abortion comparison but don't feel it was entirely necessary - there's more than enough sound argumentation here without piggybacking on contentions surrounding a rather vulnerable social movement. But that's more a matter of taste than reasoning, and is in any case a nitpick.

Much appreciated read. Keep writing.

Thanks. I'm glad you appreciated it. I know that there was enough argumentation even without introducing the topic of abortion. But I think that, given "My Body, My Choice" is a meme at this point which is a core doctrine of 21st century progressivism, we need to start asking how this doesn't also apply to suicide. I'm looking to start a Twitter hashtag campaign, but it's annoying that "My Body, My Choice" has already been assigned to the issue of abortion, when it would be far more apt when applied to the topic of suicide.

Signed. Unfortunately I don't think anything can come of it. They won't even acknowledge requests for euthanasia for the terminally ill, they certainly won't be making SN or N more available. The war on drugs is in full swing, they're even considering making cannabis class A, punishible by more prison than a pedophile gets for raping a child

Thank you for signing. The petition will now finally be reviewed. I think that at the moment, things look bleak for the right to die movement. But that's in large part due to the fact that suicidal people ourselves are too afraid to step out of the shadows and let our voices be heard. As I argue in my blog post, this is because of the stigmatising effects of suicide prevention campaigns which portray suicidal people as mentally unstable and incompetent to make informed choices. As soon as people actually start demanding that opponents of suicide prove that we're mentally incompetent, then we will at least begin to have a platform upon which we can start to fight for our rights. But as long as people are too afraid to be labelled as "mentally feeble"; or even being gaslit by being told that their suicidal ideation is caused by a medical condition that undermines their ability to think rationally; then the governments of the world are just going to keep ramping up suicide prevention schemes. It will get to the point where you need a license just in order to buy a length of strong rope. Maybe at that point, suicidal people will decide that they've had enough, and that our indignation at the way that we've been infantilised now outweighs our fear of how we're going to be perceived by the non-suicidal.

 

[ever so lonely]

just added my signature to it and i am about to order some sn when am paid towards the end of the week, hopefully i am outta here soonies, and this should be for anybody with mental health issues

 

[FuneralCry]

Thank you for sharing. It's disturbing the way that suicide is currently treated in society, we do live in such a pro suffering and torture society that is focused on prolonging life regardless of the quality of it and whether the person wishes to continue enduring it. It's certainly prison like and it's like we are punished because of someone else's decision to selfishly procreate. I do hope that suicide is recognised as a human right in the future, of course it really should be. It's horrific how it's not. But it's great that at least some pro choice people are trying to bring awareness to this to try and make others realise that suicide should be respected as an option.

 

[Tesha]

Thank you for writing this. I've signed the petition and it's ironicaly given me a bit of a drive, in my otherwise suicidal state to offer to help you push the agenda.

I'm tired of being handled like a hot potato between psychiatrists and psychologists because of my suicidal ideation. Each time being told I just need more suport, a diffrent approach or treatment, more time to allow my circumstances to change. What they really mean is their risk tolerance is such, that they don't want the issue and ensuing complexities of my suicide to deal with or mar their reputation.

I suffer from complex PTSD, due to being raped at multiple times during my life, by different people. Three years ago, I started to have flash backs, unfortunately I feel the rapes I don't just have image. I've tried many different psychotropic drug combinations, different psychological treatment; EMDR just triggers me….

I have capacity, I have intelligence, I have insight into my thought process and rationale. But I"m still seen as needing to be protected from myself. As mentally incapable of making my own decision about when my pain and trauma of being raped daily has become intolerable.

I'm fortunate to have access to peaceful means. I'm just not at my end point yet. If I can help you drive and highlight your petition, while I'm still alive, please DM me. I'd like to thank you for writing your (our) stance so clearly. One day our voices will be listened to.

 

[existentialgoof]

Thank you for writing this. I've signed the petition and it's ironicaly given me a bit of a drive, in my otherwise suicidal state to offer to help you push the agenda.

I'm tired of being handled like a hot potato between psychiatrists and psychologists because of my suicidal ideation. Each time being told I just need more suport, a diffrent approach or treatment, more time to allow my circumstances to change. What they really mean is their risk tolerance is such, that they don't want the issue and ensuing complexities of my suicide to deal with or mar their reputation.

I suffer from complex PTSD, due to being raped at multiple times during my life, by different people. Three years ago, I started to have flash backs, unfortunately I feel the rapes I don't just have image. I've tried many different psychotropic drug combinations, different psychological treatment; EMDR just triggers me….

I have capacity, I have intelligence, I have insight into my thought process and rationale. But I"m still seen as needing to be protected from myself. As mentally incapable of making my own decision about when my pain and trauma of being raped daily has become intolerable.

I'm fortunate to have access to peaceful means. I'm just not at my end point yet. If I can help you drive and highlight your petition, while I'm still alive, please DM me. I'd like to thank you for writing your (our) stance so clearly. One day our voices will be listened to.

Thank you for your response. I'm sorry to learn of the traumatic experiences that you've endured and how the impact of these is still very real and raw to this day. It is lamentable that our society shows nothing but disrespect for your mental faculties just because you're reacting as it is natural to react to such horrific experiences. Anything that you're able to do to help the petition would be greatly appreciated.

 

[another@]

Thank you for articulating this. I think that many of us know this on a deeper level, but have learned (or, more accurately, been conditioned) to mute our own voices when it comes to these topics, because the reaction from most people is often neglectful, hurtful, or outright dangerous (i.e. "intervention") when we finally do work up the courage to share. If we have the ability to at least share our literal and direct opposition to the rules here on this forum and possibly via a petition (Wow! You've outdone yourself!), the world will feel at least a little bit less hostile, at least for me. And I think that I speak for many lurkers here when I say this.

 

[TAW122]

Excellent article, and I read through it. It really highlights a lot of the problems (including some of the threads/topics that I write about on SaSu, especially about psychiatric treatment, human rights, legality of assisted suicide, and more) in society. I believe we have similar minds and I appreciate all the points (including ones that I may not have thought about) that you discussed in detail in your article. One thing that really stands out to me is how the field of psychiatry operates very differently from other branches of medicine and how it isn't indicative of lacking the capacity to make rational decisions (very important!). This point especially regarding capacity is also an important factor in current existing assisted dying programs around the world (MAID in Canada for instance).

 

[Euthanza]

A decent article, nice to read such balancing arguments.

Tbh I can't be politically correct about suicide prevention in the world today, their stance is nothing more than savior complex symptoms of crab mentality. I have to point out this.

If they really care about suicidal people, instead of caring about their own happy comfort desire to live, they should try here in SS and begin to know us, recognizes our problems of living one by one before claim to help nor to save.
One can't solve any problem one doesn't know.