What are you thinking of? Non-assisted suicide that doesn’t put third parties in danger is legal most places (exceptions: India, Singapore, North Korea, Virginia). Self-injury is legal in the US at least. Discussion of suicide is allowed as long as it’s even slightly more hypothetical than “I intend to kill myself in the near future”. Discussion of self-injury is AFAIK completely legal (in the US?).
My understanding has always been that self harm or plausible discussion of self harm in the US leads to a loss of autonomy in that you can be diagnosed with a mental illness and lose access to things like voting, driving, firearms, etc. (depending on the diagnosis)
There’s a huge chasm between a mental illness diagnosis (which self-harm is very likely to cause, especially in the US where you need diagnosis other than “ain’t quite right—not otherwise specified” for insurance) and actual repercussions. Members of online support groups report that their psychiatrists either treat self-injury like any other symptom (asking about it, describing decreases as good but not praiseworthy) or recommend they stop but do not enforce it. If it gets life-threatening it’s treated like suicide, but that almost never comes up.
What does it mean to make suicide illegal, anyway? You can’t punish the perpetrator, they’re dead. You can punish their relatives by e.g. taking away their inheritance, but someone who plans their suicide in advance can circumvent that by transferring ownership of the important things before killing themselves.
Punish attempts. Punish in ways that are avoidable (e.g. inheritance) but work for insufficiently planned suicides. If there’s a state religion, predict punishment in the afterlife. Punish relatives directly (North Korea does that).
Is there good data on whether this is effective as deterrence? I don’t expect it could be effective as punishment: I would expect it to increase despair and poverty, and so to increase chances of recurrent attempts.
What are you thinking of? Non-assisted suicide that doesn’t put third parties in danger is legal most places (exceptions: India, Singapore, North Korea, Virginia). Self-injury is legal in the US at least. Discussion of suicide is allowed as long as it’s even slightly more hypothetical than “I intend to kill myself in the near future”. Discussion of self-injury is AFAIK completely legal (in the US?).
My understanding has always been that self harm or plausible discussion of self harm in the US leads to a loss of autonomy in that you can be diagnosed with a mental illness and lose access to things like voting, driving, firearms, etc. (depending on the diagnosis)
Trigger warning for, obviously, self-harm.
There’s a huge chasm between a mental illness diagnosis (which self-harm is very likely to cause, especially in the US where you need diagnosis other than “ain’t quite right—not otherwise specified” for insurance) and actual repercussions. Members of online support groups report that their psychiatrists either treat self-injury like any other symptom (asking about it, describing decreases as good but not praiseworthy) or recommend they stop but do not enforce it. If it gets life-threatening it’s treated like suicide, but that almost never comes up.
What does it mean to make suicide illegal, anyway? You can’t punish the perpetrator, they’re dead. You can punish their relatives by e.g. taking away their inheritance, but someone who plans their suicide in advance can circumvent that by transferring ownership of the important things before killing themselves.
Punish attempts. Punish in ways that are avoidable (e.g. inheritance) but work for insufficiently planned suicides. If there’s a state religion, predict punishment in the afterlife. Punish relatives directly (North Korea does that).
It means that you prosecute failed suicides as crimes.
Is there good data on whether this is effective as deterrence? I don’t expect it could be effective as punishment: I would expect it to increase despair and poverty, and so to increase chances of recurrent attempts.