Should assisted death/suicide be legal?

My mother took her own life when I was a teenager towards the end of a tough fight with cancer (it's likely she would have died eventually). I'm about to turn 42 so I have some distance from this. She did it with a handgun and because it wasn't legal for her to get help so she had to do it alone in secret. I came to learn later that my parents fought about this because my dad is a doctor and understood how to help her but would have gone to jail for it and lost his career. I also think he just couldn't bring himself to do it, so having legal medical help available might have changed things?

This obviously derailed my life and my sisters and my dad for many years. I have some skepticism about if/how assisted death would have been better but I suspect it would have been. I imagine (perhaps wrongly) we would have been able to say goodbye and give her a peaceful end. Maybe have counseling leading up to and through it?

I'll respectfully skip the 1-4 specifics. I just believe that people who want to die should be allowed to do so peacefully, and no one who objects should be obligated to help. With the hundreds of millions of guns in the US, violent suicide is widely available here, the debate is more about if a peaceful death is available and I think it should be within thoughtful constraints. Those that disagree with me are entitled to their opinions though.

My option is on its surface simple, anyone should have the right to self terminate. This isn't something anyone should have to justify to someone.

I think selecting a method and location that doesn't cause a burden on those left behind is important.

And I could see legal grey areas when it comes to those found to be mentally unsound, and those who might be late stage pregnant.

But in general when possible, we shouldn't tell others how to live or die.

I don't think so. If I remember correctly, this documentary was more focused on the police unit that was in charge of this bridge (could be the Golden Gate, can't remember even if it was in CA now that I'm thinking), and so one of their task was to intervene in case someone seemed they could want to jump.

That particular police officer they were interviewing was a pretty old guy, who spent many decades working on that bridge and so have seen it all.

It was a good 5 years ago, maybe even more, so my memory is a bit hazy.

Bridge jumpers are self selected group of mostly physically healthy people suffering from the mostly temporary/treatable mental health issue of depression. I think almost nobody would argue that depression should qualify you for assisted suicide. Also, jumping off a bridge is probably the most terrifying method of suicide available. It's practically suicide-by-torture, yup, you're gonna regret that. It's a very, very different scenario than people who are in unrelenting agony and almost certain to die in X weeks/months, saying goodby to their families, going to sleep, and not waking up again. Do you think if you gave them a placebo, let them wake up again and asked "are you _really_ sure about this?" that many of them would change their minds? Probably never been done, but my guess is you'd get very few changed minds.

1. Everyone (except maybe for murderers and insane people) is a master of their body, so other people have no right at all to decide whether a sane non-murderer should be able to end his or her own life. This has nothing to do with any illness.

2. See 1.

3. When cognitive function is damaged severely, the person cannot make decisions on their own, including decisions on whether they should live or die.

4. All voluntary interactions are fine.