Okay, but…  Americans are permitted by law to terminate life in
four types of situations: abortion (Supreme Court decision in 1973),
capital punishment (the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty
laws of 39 states in Furman v. Georgia, (but nineteen states not yet
ready to fire the executioner restored the penalty), war (declared and
undeclared), and, in some jurisdictions, suicide.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/abortion/mag.htm

Suicide is legal in Oregon upheld through the federal courts so there is
no valid federal law that supersedes it. The Supreme Court declined to
hear it, therefore the decision stands.

A little more:  The constitution of any country confers certain inherent
fundamental rights and freedom to its citizens. These rights include but
are not limited to right to live, right to education, right to employment,
freedom of speech and expression etc.  Having said so, it is important to
state here that that the rights are discretionary in nature, i.e. right to
work does not essentially mean that one is required to work. Similarly,
right to business does not compel any one to have a business. The rights
are PERMISSIVE in nature but not MANDATORY.

The so called fundamental rights are however subject to reasonable
restrictions as may be more specifically laid out in Constitution of a
particular State like decency, public morality, etc.  It is felt that attempt
to commit suicide is a crime belonging to a genre that signifies societal
disapproval of an act against sanctity of human life. Thus by declaring
attempt to commit suicide a crime the law seems to uphold the dignity of
human life. In fact, in the case of Euthanasia and physician assisted
suicide(s), the countries that advocate ‘mercy killing’ are Holland,
Northern Provinces of Australia as well as some states in the United
States of America. The Netherlands is the first country in the world to
legalize euthanasia. ‘Right to death’ is different from euthanasia.
Euthanasia means ‘a good and peaceful death’. The term ‘terminal’, as
defined by medical experts, as a disease that cannot be cured or has no
remedy. However, the final remedy is death.

One may however conclude/argue that right to live includes right to die
(on the basis of permissive nature of these rights). This is because for
those whose basic necessities of life are yet to be met the promise of
right to life still remains as the last hope. I would, of course, not agree
with this one.  Desire of communion with God may very rightly lead even
a very healthy mind to think that he would forego his right to live and
would rather choose not to live. It would be my opinion that this idea is
unhealthy in all cases. But, a dying, terminally ill person or one in a
persistent vegetative state seeking termination of his or her life may be
covered by the ambit of the right to die with dignity, as a part of the
right to live with dignity, when death due to termination of natural life is
certain and imminent and the process of natural death has commenced.
These are not cases of extinguishing life but only of accelerating the
conclusion of the process of natural death, which has already
commenced. However such termination is also unlawful in many of the
countries.

A reasonable argument: The above claim however does not hold firm.
The principle that fundamental rights such as freedom of speech also
include the negative aspect of the right, i.e., that there should not be
compulsion to exercise the right, is not applicable to the right to life
because of the difference in the nature of the rights in question. This is
because it is the right to life that gives right to such other rights. If there
is no right to live, other rights would have no significance to mankind. 
Suicide is an unnatural termination or extinction of life and, therefore,
incompatible and inconsistent with the concept of right to life.

Sher—i don’t think that too many of the laws making suicide a criminal offense are
still on the books. Last time i checked it, was decades ago and it was only a
handful of states still hadn’t given it up.

Actually Chiristian, November 8 1:31am you are wrong, it is
illegal to attempt suicide.  If it is successful there is nothing
to worry about, but if not, the suicidee can be prosecuted.

dear Christian…..  most folks don’t see it as committing murder, and Americans
don’t understand it to be murder.

matter of fact, it isn’t murder. matter of law, it isn’t murder.

put a fish egg in a Petri dish and fertilize it…...and you don’t have a fish on your
plate.

you want to define something as a human being, you’re going to have to look past
the moment of conception.

it won’t pass into law and it will be struck down if it does.

A quote, comments and a few objective websites and articles on
the topic might prove helpful in coming to an informed conclusion. 
“A sperm and an unfertilized egg jointly comprise the full genetic
blueprint for a human being. Under certain circumstances, after
fertilization, they can develop into a baby. But most fertilized eggs
are spontaneously miscarried. Development into a baby is by no
means guaranteed. Neither a sperm and egg separately, nor a
fertilized egg, is more than a potential baby or a potential adult.
So if a sperm and egg are as human as the fertilized egg produced
by their union, and if it is murder to destroy a fertilized egg–despite
the fact that it’s only potentially a baby–why isn’t it murder to destroy
a sperm or an egg?” 

The problem I see is that cells from a human body may be cloned into a
human being.  If this is so, then each and every human cell is potentially
a new human being.  What are the implications of that?!  Stem cell from
skin cell research for the cure and prevention of human afflicting
diseases is in fact cloning human cells.  It is further a fact that each
such cell is also potentially a human being.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/5/9
Variations and voids: the regulation of human cloning around the world

The implications of cloning will nullify the abortion laws based on
the moment of fertilization, since it has no real meaning.  It cannot
be determined when an ovum has been fertilized.  That means some
women will be able to be prosecuted because they were found to have
aborted a zygote or a fetus of just a few days, but others not making
the law unconstitutional by singling out a type of woman.  Furthermore
at what point would laws of human rights be determined.  One egg
versus millions of sperm.  Each sperm potentially is a human.  There is
insanity in this kind of thinking.  Imagine all the potential humans that
have lived and died in the existence of humans, about 108 trillion.  Say
50% were men, no actual figure is available, but of those men who were
virile and could have fathered children, and the number of sperm each
produced in their lifetime, the number of potential humans is staggering
and gives the law in Mississippi and elsewhere its sheen of stupidity. 
Usually one sperm will fertilize, but on occasion it is know that two
sperm fertilizes an ovum but an embryo created this way doesn’t
usually survive, though a few cases are known.
http://www.baby2see.com/multiples/twins.html

http://emerald7tfb.wordpress.com/
Introduction and Index to articles on Reproductive choice

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1704580,00.html
Scientists Clone Human Embryos
Michael D. Lemonick Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008

What gerard said…with a half dozen exclamation
points.

•  So Mississippi has new citizens now bloodless and skinless and looking as unlike actual human beings as possible. Adding to ‘legal’ human existence tiny little unformed cellular clumps, along with business filings by fee minded lawyers creating charters as thick as an actual child’s fingernail. Heady with abstractions, marching into the evolving future, confident with declarations, they are making the future safe for things that are not true. Actual human beings, the real flesh and blood ones, are left out in the cold heartless world where things hurt and do go bump in the night. Are these people thinking at all…or just taking advantage of centuries of real ignorance? Truly abstractionists, with no respect whatsoever for the material world, they are going about making the human condition darker, more alone, something in between the legislature and the slamming jail door straight from a courtroom hearing, and sadly even more tragic.

Repugnicans are going to require more volunteers to
engage in warfare - we really should bring back the
draft so people become concerned about their own kin.

Again, were back to the same crazy “Christian Nation”
people.  These people are psychotic.  They want to
get the US ready for the second coming of Christ.  At least their idea of “the second coming”.  They’ve aligned themselves with big money so the problem isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

“The head of Personhood Mississippi is right wing
activist Les Riley, a featured blogger of the group
Christian Exodus, which has “goal of forming an
independent Christian nation that will survive after
the decline and fall of the financially and morally
bankrupt American empire.”

Christian Exodus had attempted to move thousands of
supporters to South Carolina in order to “form a
biblically inspired government and secede from the
United States,” and also has close ties to the
separatist and Neo-Confederate League of the South.
Christian Exodus also is encouraging adherents to
move to Panama and Idaho in order to build theocratic
settlements.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/leading-republicans-embrace-personhood-amendment-and-“christian-exodus”-separatist-advocate

This just about puts Mississippi on the same level as the most destitute and backward third world country in the entire world, where women are forced to have intercourse, forced to bear the children that result, and forced to take major responsibility for their care and education - and without adequate resources, at that! With the world already over-populated such policies are flat-out cruel, inhuman, and insane. Period. Exclamation mark.  All Caps. Underlined. Italics.