Assisted suicide hasn’t
been in the news much lately. There have
been a couple cases, however, of suicides of despair—one, a nurse in New York
City. And one of my brother’s friends
knows two people who, unemployed and frightened, committed suicide.
These cases are
presented, when they hit the news, as terrible things. They are thought to be terrifying, I think,
because they are committed in terror and despair. This seems right enough.
But is it any less terrifying
to know that people commit suicide to escape physical suffering?
Perhaps what is
terrifying in both cases is that there exists suffering so great, physical or
psychic, that ending one’s own life seems like a good choice by comparison to
bearing it.
But to me the real
tragedy is in the perception, “I can’t bear this.” Suffering and pain are not the same thing at
all.
No comments:
Post a Comment