Le suicide assisté : quand le législatif ne peut se substituer à l’existentiel

Bommier, C.

The question of the meaning of life arises as much for the young as for the old, as soon as they experience their finitude through some experience of death. To explore the issue in retrospect, let's look at death and suicide at different scales. If we were to compare suicide to one of the cell deaths, perhaps we would compare it to apoptosis as performed by the cell itself. At the animal level, survival follows the law of the strongest or the most intelligent. On an anthropological scale, civilizations survive in the illusion of their immortality. It is certain that suicide is a most intimate act and can, in this respect, be considered an act of freedom since it relieves the body's perception of any physical law, perception being abolished by death. The fascination for suicide is based on an intellectual exploration, a search for an absolute answer in opposition to all relativism, which paradoxically will take shape in annihilation. In times of pandemic and confinement, humanity experiences its finiteness. Confinement has re-installed a sense of loneliness in a society that lives on constant hyper-communication. In this text, the author demonstrates that suicide must be avoided because it is nonsense for both the individual and the community. Thus, living with disability as well as old age should be valued more highly, and public health policies against the causes leading to suicide should become state priorities. Finally, far from pathologizing suicide, the question of legally recognizing the right to (unassisted) suicide for those who commit it must be asked.