Rational Suicide, Irrational Laws: Examining Current Approaches to Suicide in Policy and Law

When should we try to prevent suicide? Should it be facilitated for some people, in some circumstances? For the last forty years, law and policy on suicide have followed two separate and distinct tracks: laws aimed at preventing suicide and, increasingly, laws aimed at facilitating it.

In Rational Suicide, Irrational Laws legal scholar Susan Stefan argues that these laws co-exist because they are based on two radically disparate conceptions of the would-be suicide. This is the first book tha...