We never learned this one in high-school health class.
"Remember, kids, it's down the road, not across the street!" Usually, someone who says this doesn't have the well-being of the listener in mind. But I submit that power over the timing of one's death is the most fundamental freedom of all (per Sartre) and an important part of well-being. The rise in suicide rates popularly (factually?) associated with industrialization and increased quality of life could, in fact, be a good sign. In a perfect world, everyone would commit suicide, eventually. Furthermore, it's our duty as ethical people to secure others' ability to end their own lives when they choose.
Well. Now that half of you have left, the remaining one (Hi, Jenny!) is expecting an explanation. First, how can rising suicide rates be a good thing? Well, one obvious explanation is that quality of life (on some intangible, existential, angsty level if simple indicators like the price of marijuana say everything's groovy) is actually declining, and people have more of a reason to opt out of the world. I agree that's bad. What I'm suggesting is an alternative explanation: regardless of the quality of life, maybe the quality of life-extending medical technology (longevity, of course, having nothing to do with quality of life) is increasing to the extent that people who would have died earlier get to live until they don't feel like doing so anymore. If that's the only mechanism, and it's probably not, then it's a very good sign. More people get to live exactly as long as they want to. Like Nietzsche said, they die at the right time.
What's really tragic about most deaths is that the deceased didn't want to die just then and there; they had other plans that were cut short. It's easier to accept someone's passing if "she's lived a full life," or "it was just his time." This is because those deaths take away fewer of the victim's potentials, or hopes, or options, or freedoms. And that's why an ethical person, and an ethical society, should raise awareness about how to kill oneself cleanly, painlessly, and cheaply. We shouldn't try to prevent the act of suicide itself, because it's the most fundamental freedom; as Sartre said (I think), simply to live is to condone implicitly the conditions of the world. We should certainly try to improve the conditions that would lead someone to want out, but the smaller issue I'm talking about here is also improving their access to the final exit in case they should choose to use it.
So on that day when I came home to find a body on the sidewalk in front of my building, if the first batch of police hadn't just arrived, I should have run over to check if he was alive – surely we agree on that. Then, if he was still alive, the selfless thing to do would have been to finish the job for him. Yes, you read that right. In this situation, the open window and the bystanders made it clear what he had decided to do, and if he had temporarily survived the fall, it would have been my duty to remove the obstacle preventing him from doing what he wanted. I'm sure I couldn't have done it, and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself (even in my jail cell) if I had, but it would have been selfless.
It's like sex education. Sure, you might argue that it just condones or even encourages the practice. But the same kinds of counterarguments apply, too. For one thing, as you can see, I condone the practice. For another, it's going to happen whether I condone it or not. Just like catching herpes because there were no condoms is more tragic than catching HIV from informed carelessness, a botched suicide attempt by an uninformed person is worse than a successful one by an informed person.
I don't see comprehensive suicide education coming to a public school near me anytime soon. But the next time you see a guy dangling from the Washington Avenue bridge, give him a push for me.