Suicide is when someone intentionally and successful stops one’s own body from functioning to the point that one’s own body can no longer support one’s own life. In The United States, in 2007, nearly 35,000 individuals successfully engaged in suicide. Why should we try to reduce the frequency of suicides? Is death bad? Is dying bad? That all seems to be philosophical, moral, theological and spiritual matters.
I am personally for trying to reduce the frequency of suicides. However, I do not condone the use of force and coercion to try and reduce the number of suicides. This is partially because I think that suicide (death control) should be a personal decision, at least for adults, just like choosing when to procreate (birth control) is respected as right. This is also partially because I think that ultimately, if we, as a culture, a free peoples and as a society ever want to totally eliminate suicides, then it will have to be done through the use of persuasion and changes in culture, political and social policies.
Why do individuals engage in suicide? What reasons do individuals have? Anecdotally and logically, it seems to be that individuals who engage in suicide feel that there is no good reason to live, or at least, there are better reasons to die, than to live.
I think that it is possible for individuals to create lives worth living. I think that if one is able to enjoy life and create a life worth living, then one will likely not want to engage in suicide. Living can be an enjoyable experience. Living can also be an unpleasant experience.
So, in my opinion, it seems that it is desirable to try and reduce the frequency of suicides because life can be an enjoyable experience, and as long as it can be an enjoyable experience, then it is desirable to try and reduce the frequency of suicides on Earth, so that more individuals can enjoy life. There are other potential reasons why one might claim that it is good to try and reduce suicides. One might claim that it helps the economy or that it allows for there to be more individuals around in case more individuals need to be drafted into military services. Whatever reasons there are to try and help reduce the suicide rates, I do not think that any of them justify the use of force, coercion or effective imprisonment on adults.