On 4/16/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org>
wrote:
An article on how to commit suicide is, in my
opinion, irresponsible,
regardless of whether or not there are other such guides already on
the Internet. But it also has no place in an encyclopedia.
This is a moral judgment. There is an entirely reasonable moral
position that suicide is a perfectly valid option for any human being
to consider, and that providing information on how to commit suicide
safely without crippling yourself or others is better than pretending
such information does not exist. In fact, suicide hotlines here in
Germany tend to answer these questions just as calmly as they give
reasons why one would want to avoid suicide (my mother has done
training and supervision of suicide hotline workers, so I know a bit
about the topic). A strong bias against suicide as an ultimate
rational choice betrays an American cultural bias; Europe has a much
more developed philosophical discourse on the morality of suicide.
(Many here prefer the word "Freitod", or "free death", to
"Selbstmord", i.e. "self-murder".)
We should not be in the business of making such a moral judgment, but
we should structure our information. Wikipedia is not a how-to. A
purely descriptive, well-referenced listing of methods, their safety
implications, and their cultural context would make a fine article.
The current article suicide methods is awful, but not awful enough to
be deleted. Unreferenced content should be carefully culled. A more
detailed description of methods would be reasonable Wikibooks
material, together with a discourse of reasons to commit & not to
commit suicide. In fact, I would not be surprised if such suicide
manuals have already been produced in the context of professional aid
work.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
That's exactly what I've been trying to say. It's all relative. ~~~~