I don't have a good answer. I have a personal and surely biased feeling that it is wrong and frequently harmful in a profound way to families and friends.

My older brother killed himself in a failed attempt to convincingly pretend to be suicidal in order to be transferred to a lower security part of a prison. He forgot that prison guards aren't paid enough to give a shit about anything so they didn't follow their policy of roaming around and checking on people and he bled to death. He was going to be there until he was almost 50.

Trying to be objective as possible. I think if it was allowed and there wasn't a massive social stigma against it, there would still be huge issues. Even old, experienced people are woefully bad at accurately estimating when a situation is irretrievably hopeless. So I think we would see a lot of young people (not just young as in kids but also 30-40 year olds) killing themselves for really stupid reasons (like we already do).

We might see someone lose a job and kill themselves when there's a good chance they could have recovered. A business might fail. A relationship might end. A loved one might die suddenly. A lonely person might be tired of trying. The temporary release of severe anguish in exchange for a life you currently aren't very fond of doesn't seem a high cost to pay soon after traumatic events occur.

I'm generally considered a pessimist. However, when it comes to life, I can step back and acknowledge that there are lots of really bad situations that are redeemable. It might take years of work. It might involve being depressed or broke for a very long time. But persistent effort is the greatest indicator of success.

I've been depressed my whole life so I understand the struggle. I know that in addition to the regular life things many of us suffer from, there are also various types of trauma that make the ordinary things unbearable.

I could see situations where I agree someone may have never had any chance for their lives to improve.

I knew a young woman in her 20s with a 14-year old daughter with autism. The child had so many issues she had to be monitored 24/7 to keep her from hurting herself. The mother had a dead end, shitty job (coincidentally she was a prison guard) that barely allowed her to survive. Between the job and the kid it was laughable to suggest that she had any realistic chance at all of going to school or finding a better job. When her girlfriend left her, she killed herself. She wasn't a friend of mine, only an acquaintance that I didn't know well. I wish she were still here, mostly from the pain that most any of us would feel from simply knowing a person that died young. However, when I step back and analyze her situation and try to think of any possibility of her finding some kind of relief or comfort, I don't think she had a chance. As a high school dropout, I should be a failure too, but I was fortunate and my interests as a youth happened to become very marketable.

Some of us are forever trapped by the decisions we make when we are younger. For those of us like this girl, where not just one or two things are stacked against you, but seemingly everything. How can we judge? I want to be angry at any person that leaves a child alone in this world when it could have been prevented, but would I have the strength to live an impoverished life of waking hell for 60 years? I'm not very confident I could.