Letter to the editor. Rational suicide & its accompanying attitudes are irrelevant & misleading, & may be the basis for unnecessary deaths. Rational suicide is often founded on unconscious reasons & related to family pressures & conflicts. Proponents may be unable to cope with the mourning process or to see the alternatives e.g. effective psychotherapy is possible with the terminally ill. They may be influenced by society’s ageism, bias against the ill, the severely disabled, & the poor. (GW)