Suicide, murder or choice?

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I spoke with a mod before I started this thread, to ask.

It is a good question to debate, and it's away from the haven where personal issues are at stake. I think in this forum, we are obligated to just take what is there when we come into it.

If ya'll want to lock this one and whatever to it that yall do, that's fine. He told me that that might happen but it's a good topic so it's ok to try it here.

I don't know what I think about the topic really. It could be both really.

If you go by US law, murder is a willfull intentional killing of a human being. But it doesn't apply when the other human being is in your body. (I'm pro choice) When the human being is YOU, then you of course consent to it. But if you survive it, what you have done to yourself could be attempted murder legally.

So, it's really a conundrum here. A virtual Pandora's box of things to look at.

Let's keep it nice please. I do plan to. o, come on yall folks who discussed this before if it will not upset you. I do not want to upset anyone, which is why I put it here, where polite conversation dares to tread.

So, which is it? I don't know which it is, and I doubt that anyone will convince me of either except on purely logical grounds. There is an emotional aspect as well involved. And consent. Although oddly enough, you cannot consent to a good singletail whip session that will cause slight physical damage, because you cannot consent to assault. So, whats the take on it boys and girls?

Again, please keep it nice. PLEASE? For me? I'll swear to God make you cookies and mail them to you if you keep this nice. PM me the info if you want them.

Murder is one person killing another person, suicide is killing yourself. I don't see how it could be argued that they are the same thing.

Someone did argue that it was the same. It made me wonder about the idea of that. Thats why I asked to start this thread.

That's like saying if I punch myself in the gut it's assault.

It makes no sense.

This is my opinion about it.....and I agree it's better discussed here.

If you kill someone who wants to die and tells you do kill them, it's euthanasia. If you kill yourself because you want to die, it's suicide. If you accidentally kill someone, it's manslaughter. If you kill someone else on purpose, it's murder.

These things, though all related to the death of human beings, are completely different acts with different implications and circumstances. One can't really be called the other.

What if you kill someone in self defense? is it still murder?

It depends. If that person was trying to kill you and had a dangerous weapon, you might get off any charges. If they didn't, but you didn't intentionally kill them, it'd be manslaughter.

Obviously I'm not a lawyer though

That is a bit of a grey area.

It is murder, but at the same time it's justified murder.

To be or not to be that is the question.

Purely a matter of choice.

One can act to guard or defend his life or not. One can take steps to end one's life or not.

If one chooses to End It, it had better be a seriously thought out choice, because it is irreversible.

ruveyn

Well, if it was my inclination, I could not consent to you spanking me to the point of breaking a bone. I could not consent to you cutting me to the point of needing stitches, etc. That's brought up frequently in BDSM circles about "in case emergency treatment is needed". It's said that you cannot consent to assault.

The punching yourself brings up another issue. Add to it the cutting issue that some have. Is that assault or not?

I could see how it is and how it isn't.

Thats why I asked for viewpoints. I don't really have one on this. If you successfully kill yourself, then you won't be around for prosecution. If you don't succeed, how would prosecution "teach you" anything?

No one actually gets done for attempted suicide these days. They'll just get put into therapy or something.

That would be disturbing if one could be charged with attempted murder for attempting suicide, and kind of insulting and most certainly would not help matters. So I think it is important to keep harm of others and harm of self in different categories.

Here is where I see your first mistake.

First of all, there is no single definition of murdern in US law. There are, in fact, 51 definitions of murder, based on the criminal law of each of the 50 states, as well as the federal jursisdiction. Murder only means what the legislature and the supreme court of the jurisdiction in question say that it means. There is no single formula that applies universally.

Generally speaking, the mens rea for murder is the intention to kill another human being (suicide is expressly excluded), or the intention to cause that person bodily harm, and death results. "I only intended to hurt him" is not a defence to murder if your blow was sufficient to kill the victim. In some jurisdictions, though, an intention to cause lesser harm must be accompanied by recklessness as to whether or not death actually ensued. In others, death must happen within a year and a day of the intentional action.

Second, the legal definition of a "human being" can vary. In Canada, for criminal law purposes, a child becomes a human being when it has passed, in a living state, entirely from the body of its mother. So in this jurisdiction, the exclusion of abortion from murder is inherent in the definition of human being.

Third, the law does not recognize the validity of consent to grievous bodily harm or to death. Suicide is not legally excused because you consent, but rather because if the act is successful, punishment is moot, and if the act is unsuccessful, then the fact of the attempt is generally evidence of diminished capacity.



You most certainly can consent to assault--though really, what you are describing is battery. Assault is a threat to do violence to the victim with the apparant means to carry out that violence. Battery is unwanted touching. But regardless, plently of perfectly capable people consent to being battered every day, whether through participation in contact sports, or through participation in sexual activities. Thowing in the towel, or the utterance of a safe word are means by which a person indicates that consent has been withdrawn, and that further contact will constitute battery.

The killing of human beings falls into a huge range of potential classifications:

-Justified state exercise of force, such as capital punishment
-Authorized state exercise of force, such as the projection of national interests by armed forces
-Legitimized state exercise of force, such as the use of deadly force by peace officers to maintain public peace and order
-Murder, being homicide with the intent to kill or to cause bodily harm
-Manslaughter, being homicide where the specific intent to kill is absent, but the actions were voluntary
-Infanticide, where a woman, suffering from post-partum depression kills her own child within its first months of life.
-Abortion, where a miscarriage is procured by artificial means before a child has become a legal human being
-Suicide, where the actor is also the victim
-Non-culpable homicide, where death takes place as a direct result of another person's actions, but not criminal responsibility attaches--such as a doctor's withdrawal of treatment, or a decision to "unplug" a ventilator
-Accident

and so forth. Certainly there is some overlap--what is the difference between, say, "criminal negligence causing death," and, "manslaughter?" In practice they are distinct offences, but in the context that you are raising the question, there is little to distinguish them. But to suggest that all deaths of human beings are, ipso facto homicides is too uncritical in my view.

Murder: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.
The definition pretty much speaks for itself.

Suicide: the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally.
Obviously not murder if you’re doing it to yourself.

OliveOilMom I wouldn’t worry too much about civility here.

Suicide is murder because you are taking a human life. All humans are protected by law against acts of murder. By making suicide exempt you are arguing that you are not human. All humans are made in the image of God. So even if you take your own life you are still destroying an image of God which is a crime against God and humanity.