Monday, March 3, 2008

Is suicide rational?

I used to think it was but this article "The Golden Gate: A Bridge Too Deadly?" convinced me otherwise:
Gazing at the Pacific Ocean over a railing only four feet high, he found the sole remaining impediment to his death was his own willpower, which turned out to be fleeting. "I counted to 10, and I couldn't do it," Baldwin said. "And I counted to 10 again, and I vaulted over. "And my hands were the last thing to leave, and once they left, I thought: 'This is the worst decision I've ever made in my life.' " CalTrans officials point to a University of California survey's finding that nine out of 10 people prevented from jumping off the Golden Gate were still alive years later or had died of natural causes, despite the rationale that a barrier would prompt them only to "go somewhere else to end it." The study is part of a growing body of scientific literature that explodes persistent myths about suicide while reinforcing a simple principle: When it is harder to kill oneself, fewer people do so.

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