The Internet Community has the power to take on the members of the AMA on an individual basis, we do not have to deal with its hierarchy or respect the Australian court process. It is tragic to see an intelligent individual such as Max Bell sentenced to a humiliating death by these evil self-interest groups. I accept that psychiatric disorders may make people suicidal, but to imply that the desire to commit suicide is inherently undesirable or pathological is insulting to rational people who have ended their own lives. We surely need a rival organisation to the Samaritans which helps the suicidal but clearly respects the right to die and is not inherently prejudiced against the act of suicide. Many suicidal people will feel alienated by the attitude of the Samaritans and will not seek help from them.
Suicide is surely a universal phenomenon associated with conscious life-forms.
Artificially intelligent entities capable of acting on the basis of self-reflection would surely have the phenomenon of suicide in their society. Natural selection maintains a balance between the positive and negative effects for survival of the ability to exercise free will. Our will to live is no more than an artefact of this process and should not be elevated to the level of a philosophy. If suicide is an innate property of intelligent societies, the attitude of the Samaritans is obviously inappropriate. In a society in which there is no right to voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill it is particularly offensive to misrepresent the act of suicide.