Talk:Suicide (Prevention) Bill

comment

"several widely reported cases of individuals taking their own lives having used websites that have provided explicit information on suicide methods" does, I think, show the difficulty in reaching any sort of conclusion regarding how to treat information on the internet. On one side you could see this as being a 'good thing' as people are finding the information they seek, but the Bill is seeking to stop that possibility without any suggestion as to how (or, indeed, why) this might be done. Without such information people will, without any doubt whatsoever, still (try to) commit suicide but, dare I say it, could be less successful in doing so, even possibly leaving themselves painfully disabled because they weren't successfull. Knowing better methods to kill oneself may make it a little more likely you will try to do so, but anyone who has considered such an action (and I include myself in that number in times past) is, I'd submit, not going to go 'over the edge' just because of such informational availability. Absence of information does not have a detterent effect. So, yet again, an example of the Canute effect and ultimately doomed to fail. --AlisonW (talk) 19:25, 16 November 2012 (GMT)