Assisted suicide is deliberately helping other individuals to kill themselves. It can include giving a person strong sedatives that will end their life. Usually, assisted suicide is a healthy response to the wishes of a patient who has a terminal illness. It entails a discussion between the patients and the physician and, at times, involves the patient's family members. On the other hand, unassisted suicide is often a personal decision made in isolation. The person deciding to commit suicide is mostly suffering from depression. Unassisted suicide has been in existence for a long time in history, while assisted suicide is a rather recent phenomenon. Suicide and assisted differ in many ways, and they also have a few similarities.
Different reasons were underlying the decision for suicide and assisted suicide. The will to live among the two is different. Suicide is termed as a choice to terminate an open-ended lifespan while an individual who is terminally ill does not certainly want to die; they normally want to continue living but are unable to (Leming & Dickinson, 2020). Even though the request is about the desire to die, they would not have decided if they were not in the situation. However, those who choose suicide would also have avoided the decision if they were not in their condition. Moreover, the reasons to wish to die are also caused by the nature of suffering. The ailing persons who request assisted suicide often talk of the significance of dignity, the experience of painful death of others, the fear of having their bodies fall apart, and the desire to escape such a fate. In contrast, people who tried suicide rarely raise such apprehensions. Thus, the forms of suicide have varying reasons to choose death.
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There is also a purported difference in impulsiveness of suicide and assisted suicide. Generally, suicide occurs due to personal impulse of self-destruction, whereas assisted suicide is a decision that results from comprehensive contemplation and reflection. Planning and ideation are recognized as some of the predictors of suicide completion and suicide attempts, signifying that impulsiveness is an unnecessary piece in the act (Leming & Dickinson, 2020). Planning is also fundamental to the experience of persons who seek assisted suicide, mainly because it is needed legally. There is a requirement to wait for around fifteen days between two compulsory requests. The planning is significant as it prolongs the circumstances of euthanasia for the people suffering psychologically (Passing on Documentary, n.d.). Thus, most persons who choose suicide do not make any plans since some want to die. On the contrary, individuals who seek medically assisted suicide have taken preparations of all sorts of practical and financial arrangements. Some prepare from where they want to die at home or in the hospital and at what season or time.
The other plausible difference is the degree of hope between suicide and assisted suicide. People see assisted suicide as a fulfillment of a person's wishes and promoting dignity, while they frequently characterize suicide as preventable and tragic. An important part of these distinct reactions lies in the degree of hope that appears appropriate in both contexts. A suicide appears tragic since the person's life still had so much hope, whereas an assisted suicide for an ailing individual shortens a life one has already lost all hope. The idea of allowing those suffering psychologically to get assisted suicide often appears like releasing any hope for the people who require it most. However, there is an unknown difference in appropriate hopelessness in both cases. In the dominion of psychological suffering, the idea of futility is not openly defined. Thus, it is essentially intolerable to designate any psychiatric ailment as incurable.
Capacity also distinguishes the ending of life with the assistance of the physicians and ending life by suicide. The reasoning on which an individual who is terminally ill uses to the base is suicide decision is greatly different from the one a depressed individual uses to substantiate suicide. A conventionally suicidal individual may be unable to evaluate their situation objectively or clearly (PBS- Suicide Tourist, n.d.). Irrespective of if a mental disorder has a role in suicide, most people seeking to differentiate suicide from assisted suicide insist that people who try suicide do not have decisional capacity when choosing. But most people who get assisted suicide have been considered to have the capacity to approve the procedure. Thus, there is a difference between a person in a psychotic situation and one who is depressed. They are only experiencing a sensation that does not influence their decision-making.
On the other hand, both suicide and assisted suicide lead to loss of lives and affect the families who lose lives. Every death comes to a shock, whether following a suicide or a chronic condition. Even though a person might have been ailing for a long period, the assertion of their passing on remains nonetheless hard to absorb (Leming & Dickinson, 2020). It is even more difficult to hear about an unnatural traumatic demise through any form of suicide. Some young adults who commit suicide leave their families traumatized and grief-stricken because of the willful act of taking own life. It is similar to older adults who choose assisted suicide, and it affects their family members since most would have loved to spend time with them until they breathe their last (The Cost of Dying: End-of-Life Care, n.d.). Some ailing patients who go for assisted suicide leave their loved ones in despair and having a hard time absorbing the reality that they are no more. Therefore, both suicide and assisted suicide are similar in the impacts they bring to bereaving families.
Moreover, suicide and assisted suicide are similar in that they result from some suffering or mental problem. There are many themes across the contexts, including the feeling of lack of prospects, the lack of control, the dissolution of personal identity, the experience of burdening other people, hopelessness, loneliness, and the central point of loss. For instance, a person who is ailing would see death making sense to them. They feel like they are doing the kindest thing to the people who love them and the ones they love (Roach, 2004). They are tormented and feel like they are tormenting others. They would see the only way to give them peace was by leaving. A person committing suicide would also feel that they would rather die than inconveniencing individuals who look after them. The notion of suffering and burdening other people are in both context of assisted suicide and unassisted suicide.
In conclusion, it is clear to emphasize the similarities and differences between suicide and assisted suicide. The two actions of ending lives differ in the degree of hope among the victims. The terminally ill person might feel that there is no hope left and that they need to give peace to their loved ones by leaving. Moreover, people who choose the two forms of suicide have different reasons for ending their lives. They are undergoing different forms of suffering that make them want to die. Impulsiveness and capacity also differ between suicide and assisted suicide. Impulsiveness is a fundamental difference that shows the gap between assisted suicide and unassisted suicide. Most young adults who attempt suicide are impulsive, unlike the ailing adults who choose assisted suicide. On the other hand, both forms of suicide end life and affect loved ones. They are also decisions that take place as a result of suffering physically or psychologically. However, people should take caution regarding the harms caused by both actions.
References
Leming, M. R., & Dickinson, G. E. (2020). Understanding dying, death, and bereavement . Cengage Learning.
Passing on Documentary https://passing-on.org
PBS- Suicide Tourist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaR4xx2si6g
Roach, M. (2004). Stiff: The curious lives of human cadavers . WW Norton & Company.
The Cost of Dying: End-of-Life Care https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6xPBmkrn0g
