1
- Human life has some inherent/higher value and therefore the taking of that life in all its form must be condemned.
This argument fails, in the sense that it presumes one human can know the heart of another better than they know it themselves.
Most modern Western Civilized nations (except for the USA who are backwards on a lot of issues) have removed the death penalty as a criminal punishment because we appreciate this point.
But most of these western nations are also far more willing to accommodate both late-term abortion and euthanasia than any jurisdiction in the United States is. Besides, confining the discussion to a prohibition on capital punishment for murderers, it leads to the curious conclusion (at least on a theoretical level), that the life of the murderer is of greater value than that of the murdered. After all, the murderer is still living and breathing and the murdered is dead. I say this with the reasonable presumption that the state has a monopoly on the legal use of force against its citizens, and that any justice for the murdered can only come via representatives of this state.
This can be grounded in moral or religious beliefs. Either way, the argument goes that human life is so important that the destruction of a human life can never be a 'good' thing. Not saying I agree with any of these just giving you the arguments.
So this conclusion does not follow, relative to your claim on the death penalty and other countries outside the US.
2
- No human of sound mind can ever truly want to end their life. As a species we have the desire to survive built into our genes, into our minds through evolution. The survival instinct is very strong. Therefore, the decision to end ones own life can only come from someone who is mentally unfit to make such a monumental decision.
Its sort of circular reasoning, you can't choose to end your life because your not mentally fit to make that decision and your not mentally fit because you want to end your life.
Agreed, and it can therefore be disregarded as irrational, or at any rate illogical.
But that is one reason for not allowing suicide that relies on medical competence rather than religion/morals
Actually, it doesn't rely on medical competence. It is simply the morals or religious beliefs of the physicians driving the judging vis a vis "competence" rather than those of priests, witch doctors or whomever. As in the USSR, when dissidents were sentenced to mental hospitals
by psychiatrists for denying that they were living in a socialist paradise.
3
- And the third reason is the one already brought up. The often quoted and often contested/doubted (on SF) idiom, that 'suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem'. There is no going back, no changing things and 'perhaps' your problems could be fixed with time.
I sort of agree with this one, actually, in the sense that I don't think anyone should precipitately commit suicide, but only after a long period (at least a year from making a conscious decision) of thought before taking the step.