Should Suicide be legal

Suicide is a criminal offense in most western countries. I think suicide should be legal because its your life and you should be able to do what you want with it. Suicide is different from abortion, cloning, euthanasia, and taking someone else's life in the important respect that it involves only one individual and his/her choice about the way he/she lives and dies.

Suicide, without considering factors like a deathly illness, should not be legal. When someone considers suicide, he usually is in a state of severe stress or depression, possibly due to chemical changes or unnatural reasons. In other words he does not have clear judgement to make such a permanent and devastating decision. If everyone who had once contemplated suicide had decided to go through with it then there would be a much smaller population on Earth. The idea that suicide involves only one individual is completely false; someone may touch thousands of others from the extremely personal relationship from father to son to to the impersonal but widespread effect of a popular idol to his fans. In this respect suicide can effect millions of people and negatively impact their lives. The decision to give up shouldn't be their decision because not only will so many others disagree with the thought of killing yourself, but yourself in another state of mind would also disagree with that decision. If suicide wasn't illegal then the state would be encouraging people to end their lives. Misguided individuals would kill themselves to get the insurance money for their families instead of taking the responsible action of providing for them. For all of these reasons, and the obvious immorality of taking away the gift of life, i strongly oppose the legality of suicide.

"If everyone who had once contemplated suicide had decided to go through with it then there would be a much smaller population on Earth."

Actually, thats what we need. There are too many people on Earth. The Earth is way over populated. Humans create so much pollution which hurts the enviroment and animals.

Everyone dies sooner or later anyways. The people who commit suicide will most likely save themselves from suffering.

Legal Suicide = Less People = Less Polution = Better and longer lives for other people.

"Better and longer lives for other people."
This had me going for a minute. Do you really believe if a child's parents decided to kill themselves one day because they couldn't deal with the stress of this economic crisis that the quality of that child's life would really increase? There are many people on the world, but not too many that suicide has to be our final option. It's the amazing amount of people that have given you access to your Niki's and TV's and much more than you realize. Do people starve in Africa because of overpopulation? In part, yes. But could we DO something about it, such as basic aid and financial help rather than telling them to kill themselves? Absolutely. We shouldn't rule out birth control either. Suicide is a ridiculous idea to ending the pain and suffering on Earth because it would just cause more pain and suffering. If your heart really aches for the lives of the people on this planet then DO something to help. Don't give a cowardly solution to a serious problem.