CMV: saying that suicide is selfish doesn't bring anything meaningful to the conversation and it's kinda pointless.

When debating the topic of suicide or assisted suicide, I always see a word that is mentioned without exception, usually by people who is against it, and it's the word "selfish".

One of the main arguments against suicide is that killing yourself is a selfish action because you're traumatizing the people that loves you permanently, and this means that suicide should be seen as the last option or not even considered.

A lot of people agree with this, and many of them are or were suicidal, this surprises me because apparently is a convincing argument for both sides of the discussion, pro's and antis, but for me this argument means basically nothing for the sake of the debate, it doesn't matter if you're pro suicide or anti suicide.

But let's answer the question first: it's suicide a selfish action? Yes or no?

Welp, the answer is clearly yes.

According to the Collins dictionary of English, suicide means: "someone concerned solely with their own needs, benefits, or welfare, often disregarding the rights or feelings of others. It typically implies a lack of consideration for others and is used to criticize actions motivated by personal gain over the common good."

If we think about it, suicide fits in this definition because is (almost always) a decision made for the benefit of the person that acts, they usually want to escape from an anguish situation or an intense feeling.

Of course, this isn't always the case, some may do it for the sake of others thinking things like: "if I was dead the world would be better" or stuff like that, but most of the time this isn't the main reason at least.

Now, the reason why I don't think that this is an important factor when talking about suicide is because the intrinsic nature of suicide is selfish, just like everything we do for our own sake.

When we're discussing rights (in this case, the right to die), we always do it with the impression that it's for the benefit of the individual, rights are inherently selfish because they're things that we do for our individual desires (mostly).

If I want to have a kid, build a house, or start a business, the common reason behind it isn't to help others, but to receive a benefit without thinking about the others.

If I want to get a tattoo, I'm not thinking about the potential risks of it or if it will bring something good to society, I'm just thinking about getting a tattoo because I want to.

This is an example of something we do because it's selfish, but I've never seen someone trying to make tattoos illegal because it's selfish, who cares?

When we're talking about rights, we think about how it could benefit the person that acts on that right, not about the indirect damage that it brings.

You may say: "b-but the difference is that suicide brings pain and suffering for the people around the person that killed themselves!! Getting a tattoo or building a house doesn't have negative consequences for the others right?"

Ok, this is an interesting argument, but if you're against suicide because of the potential trauma and pain that it brings to the loved ones of the individual, you might be against these examples as well:

-a woman getting an abortion when her husband doesn't agree..

-an individual becoming atheist in a religious household.

-a person leaving their country, family and friends in order to seek better economic stability.

Etc, etc, etc...

I doubt you're against all these three examples, you know why? Because no one cares.

Till this day, I don't understand why the right of dying is the only right where we take in EXTREME consideration the feelings of the others and not the feelings of the person making that right.

Selfishness is completely irrelevant when we're talking about a self-made action that involves only one person, we all agree that the desires or someone about their own life and body should always go first, why we don't apply this to suicide?