So let's say I intervene and cut the rope. I have a long discussion with the friend. Their family, doctors, and psychologists get involved. At the end of it the person still feels miserable, but now they "understand all the implications." He returns to the rope and this time we stand by and watch? "Welp, we tried." Or instead of a rope, the doctors administer a needle. "Good-death", euthanasia. This isn't about excusing oneself from moral responsibility. This is about doing what is right and saving souls. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who chooses suicide *cannot possibly* understand the implications. No one denies a man killing a victim is wrong. No one would object to stopping the two-year-old from sticking a fork in the outlet. So why do we think that it is morally acceptable for a grown man to kill himself or consent to being killed? There is just as much an innocent victim in this case as with the murderer, and just as much a clouded or insufficiently informed reason as with the child. All of this presupposes the truth of the Catholic faith and the reality of hell. I know this is more than a rational concern, but one of gnosis. I know, as we have discussed, that no argument *in itself* can compel someone to have a different gnosis than they have. If they don't accept the reality of hell, and have decided on death, then it may be that no argument can sway them from this course. *But I know* what fate awaits them, according to Divine Justice. To follow through with that act leaves them exposed, entirely dependent on Divine Mercy. So they escape the suffering that would have saved them, and I'm here praying chaplets of Divine Mercy every day of my life until I die, beseeching the Lord to have mercy on the foolish soul that renounced Him and then killed himself - *and* I'm to live with the guilt of having allowed it. Is this last a selfish appeal? Probably, but not without its due reference to the fate of the perished soul. @ARM