From a cultural stand point, suicide in some cases was/is considered honorable.
I watched a documentary about people who commit suicide off the Golden Gate Bridge...
There was one man in particular who stood up on the railing, back to the ocean, and leaped off and went into a head first dive backwards...
It just seemed like he had made the bravest, most freeing decision of his life. Like plunging into the unknown, fearlessly. It was inspiring.
If you want the honest answer, it's out there. People hurt when people they love leave them. There are many who have left who are still, 'alive', but they are not really there. So it would make sense there would be such a great cause as to, prevent suicide. Preventing suicide is impossible, though, if some one really wants to die. It hurts when people we love die, so we try to stop it.
I think part of true unconditional love, is respecting a persons wishes on matters such as these. When loving some one means letting go, that is a selfless act of love.
The problem enters in, when people start drawing lines on what is an acceptable circumstance for ending one's own life...
Is it acceptable to jump out of a building window and fall to your death, of your own choice, when your other option was being burned alive in a fire that would have consumed you anyway?
Would you jump out of a window and fall to your death or choose to be burned alive?
The problem with drawing these lines and making these distinctions is that we do so from a limited point of view, that of our own. And the problem in doing that, is, that we can't ever know what another persons active point of view is. We can get notions from what they say, how they behave perhaps, and reactions maybe. Perhaps we can know a little from what they have written, but... Ultimately it is impossible thus far to actually perceive another entities reality, so we are limited. It is impossible to know how hot the fire that will kill you is, without feeling the heat for yourself. Are well adept to traversing the field of physical pain? Do you cringe at the thought of just getting a shot? It's different for everyone.
Who are we to question the fear of the encroaching flame upon us all?
Suicide to me is a choice everyone has, that no one can take away.
The real shame in suicide is how many people are forced to go in a painful manner, when if we, the living, the well, had the strength and consideration to give them means to a peaceful perhaps even blissful death. Yet, one problem with this, is that often times, we view death as something some on is entitled to. A criminal may be entitled to death by electrocution or hanging. A famous person may be entitled to a famous death, famous funeral, and famous legacy. We often navigate through these distinctions, drawn lines, and views from the point of the ego. The person we think we are, and act out being.
I neither condone suicide nor condemn it. It just is and so are we, with our limited points of view and individual experiences that culminate into our conscious now, our current perception.
In my personal opinion, I don't believe anyone truly wants to die. I think there are just some who are unfortunate enough to not be able to live anymore, be it from a cancer, or a physical wound, inflicted, or self-inflicted...
In summary I don't think suicide is the, 'answer', to anything. It's the question. The answer is to live if you can, while you can, as well as you can.