[veb]

Not most countries, but it is illegal in some... see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_legislation

In NZ I do know the cops like to kick you when you're down. Let's say you've climbed a scaffold that's around a building and you want to jump but you are saved (as you had been on the phone with a suicide help line, and they passed the details to the Police), you get done with a trespass charge and can be convicted. I really hate reading stories like this - way to kick someone while they're at rock bottom, potentially making them actually do it so they don't have to go to court, get publicly shamed and potentially getting a criminal record.

[pryce]

Many cultures have a long, ingrained history of making suicidal people's lives intentionally worse as a misguided attempt to discourage suicides. A book that discusses this phenomenon that I found helpful was Al Alvarez' book "The Savage God"; Alvarez was a friend of Sylvia Path, who felt compelled to explore the issue in terms of the narratives we tell ourselves and each other about it.

In Western Christian countries, there are recorded cases of people who attempted suicide unsuccessfully being brought before the court, convicted, and sentenced to death by hanging. Reality here seems more like an extremely dark monty python sketch.

Some Western cultures also buried victims of suicide at public crossroads, a little like the bodies of murderers would be intentionally made spectacles. One view of this an explicit attempt to make it harder for their spirits to find their eternal resting places.

I cannot recall if it was in Alvarez' book where I learned it, but in my research I gathered that among some Iwi (Maori tribes) there was a culture of burying members who had killed themselves just outside the walls of their Marae (Meeting-house grounds), where their resting places would be trampled over as a sign of disrespect and societal rejection.

Even today, we see something of this view in institutions like universities etc, whose response to suicidal issues is often one that makes that persons life harder, eg communicating to a suicidal student that any further attempt on their life will result in them being expelled from their study program. I feel like for people on the receiving end, the 'message' being communicated here is one of rejection, and the threat of humiliation following any subsequent unsuccessful attempt.

[veb]

I didn't know that about Māori actually, and I am one... heh.

Those universities you mention really need to take a hard long look at themselves because that's just fucking disgraceful. Jeez.