There are various laws against suicide. Some people think those laws are stupid ("What are you going to do, arrest the corpse and charge it with murder?"). Some places may not have such laws (why would "hara kiri" be traditional in some places, otherwise?).
Anyway, some people who want to commit suicide have a dilemma, in that their bodies have failed to the extent they are unable to attempt it. That's what this Invention is for.
There is a thing called a "living will", in which you state, being of sound mind, that you wish to be allowed to die should you become mentally incapacitated, yet your body continues to live. I think the legality of this has been established and is not challenged.
So. If you are physically and not mentally incapacitated, and wish to die, the first thing to do is fill out a Living Will. Then you take this pill, that kills part of your brain. Note that you have to ask for this pill, and you have to swallow it yourself (you can spit it out if you change your mind). If you can do that much, nobody should be blame-able for letting you take this pill.
Obviously, with appropriate parts of your brain now killed, you have become mentally incapacitated. The Living Will kicks in, and your Final Mission becomes Accomplished.
Rest In Peace.-- Vernon, May 04 2007 Living Will Registry http://www.uslivingwillregistry.com/Data mentioned in the main text. [Vernon, May 04 2007] Surely asking for a gun would be far quicker, if a little messier.
Who is supposed to provide this brain killing pill? More importantly, as this is bringing you to the point at which you are effectively dead from a legal standpoint, what's to protect the person who gave you this pill from being charged for assisting your suicide?-- hidden truths, May 04 2007 Can we apply this to peoples who's brains have essentially died through years of abuse of Pain-Killers, Ecstasy and other wonderful synthetical pills?-- ColonelMuffins, May 04 2007 Never happen, at least not until all the financial resources of you and your family have been utterly exhausted in either extreme efforts to prolong the life of your body or legal action arguing right to live/die or a combination of the two.
The only reason brain-dead Terry Schiavo was on life support for years was the trust set up to pay for her care. Without the trust there would have been no discussion about pulling the plug.
Aside from that, if you want to die you need to complete the act yourself, not leave it to someone else after you are no longer capable. [-]-- nuclear hobo, May 04 2007 [Vernon] has jumped the shark.-- bungston, May 04 2007 I'm fine, [po]. This notion occurred to me while discussing something else at another site. You know how it is: One thing leads to another, pretty soon you are way off the original topic, and Hey! IDEA! Go to Halfbakery. Go directly to Halfbakery. (Do not pass "GO"; do not collect $200. Alas.)-- Vernon, May 05 2007 //If you can do that much, nobody should be blame-able for letting you take this pill.//
Really? I can think of about fourteen varieties of criminal and civil liability for handing out brain-killing pills to people.
This idea is based on a whole bunch of bad assumptions about the way this law works.-- nomocrow, May 06 2007 jesus christ what ever happened to hanging your self or taking a gun to your head. jeez you kids and your fancy killing gadgets-- Vtipper, May 06 2007 [Vtipper], this Idea specifically says that it is for the physically incapacitated. They are unable to hang themselves. They may even be unable to lift a gun, much less hold it steady enough to ensure that a bullet kills quickly. (There is a joke about "gun control is being able to hit the target".)-- Vernon, May 07 2007 A semi-gruesome note in connection with the last two annotations. A lot of people who attempt suicide by holding a pistol to the side of their head only manage to fire it through their eye sockets, leaving themselves alive, blind and bleeding. Movies, unfortunately, show that pose rather too often.
Vernon, this isn't in your usual style, but it is, as usual, interesting, and provoking. I gave it a [+] a few days ago.-- baconbrain, May 08 2007 I don't know why, but recently I've been haunted by the idea of going past the point of no-return - and having time to think about it. Like a free-diver taking a breath, and diving deeper than the point at which he'd have to turn around in order to come up alive. Or the person who leans *just* that little bit too far over the edge. Or someone who drinks too much and goes sailing. Black-holes and event-horizons. Turning points beyond which there is only one possible conclusion, which are obvious at the time, but where there is a stretch of time during which the inevitable process unfurls. How do people who cross these points feel about, and come to terms with it? - Even sometimes crossing that point deliberately in order to perform some duty, or to help someone else.-- zen_tom, May 08 2007 What's really scary is when you've crossed that point *and* survived unscathed.-- nuclear hobo, May 08 2007 If you survived scathed, it would be nice if your scathe could be commemorative in some objective form, instead of only subjectively to you. Maybe a tattoo of some sort? Psychic scathes would be more difficult.-- bungston, May 08 2007 random, halfbakery