In Defence of Suicide

No other word that means deliverance from suffering has been tarred so effectively as suicide. ‘Anodyne’ is free from such slurs. So to is ‘salvation’. ‘Euthanasia’ has been victim to the same character assassination but to a lesser degree. Only one word that is held in the same contempt, and is but no accident often used as a synonym for suicide, is comparable: murder.

But in truth the two have little in common at all. This is only one just resemblance and this is intention. Suicide is by nature intentional, it would be oxymoronic to say otherwise. One can’t commit suicide accidentally either. To do so would be coroner’s verdict of accidental death. Suicide is the purposeful execution of a desire for self-annihilation, for deliverance from despair and abject misery. It is the boon of the mortal self to psychic self. Murder conversely can be intentional, as in cases of premeditation, but can also be committed without it. Also, only the individual can know the state of his own suffering, and of his own mind. Others may attempt to deduce this from his outward appearances and behaviour, but all this is subject to interpretation, and if wanted, it may even be an act. Our minds exist in “absolute solitude” (Ryle).

It is important to note here that euthanasia should always be interpreted as assisted-suicide and not legal murder, because the beneficiary of euthanasia has requested it via living will. Where no living will exists, then it is up to the doctors to decide. The grounds for this should be that if cognitive function is non-existent or borderline so then the patient is breathing, not living. To grant them escape from this state is no crueller than turning off a computer; the two have become synonymous through the lack of the one thing which separates man from machine – mind. We should also note that assisted suicide should remain in the medical domain. Whilst for example, the well meaning friend might aid a friend in desperation by, say, pulling the trigger or administering the overdose, such cases would be too often impossible to prove as not being murder. For this reason, we must call all other forms of assisted-suicide than that by a doctor, murder.

Consider this: “‘Suicide: the act or an instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally. The legalistic concept of suicide while of sound mind, which psychiatrically speaking is not possible” (Year Book of Neurology, Psychiatry, & Neurosurgery). If to wish for absolution, for a permanent end to your suffering is to imply madness, then we must brand every man, woman and child who would wish not to be in pain, insane. To commit suicide is a polar inversion of that suggested by Psychiatry then, it is the ultimate lucid thought; it is the pinnacle of sanity.

Why then has suicide taken on a taint of murder? The answer lies via the etymology of its name. Consider the Danish for suicide – selvmord, literally self-murder. But by definition murder is the taking of a life, the ‘owner’ of which did not want it taking. As aforementioned, the only common ground between suicide and murder is found in premeditation. We must then ask how has the definition, the very structure of the word, become so blackly corrupted. The answer here is simple. Kierkegaard says of suicide “to flee from existence in this way in rebellion against God”. It is religion that has - not wanting to enter into a critique of theism – as ever in its history, perpetuated suffering in the name of the metaphysical. It has shown a belittled concern for the physical. Christianity teaches us that all life is God’s and that life is his gift. “Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” reads the Book of Job. If the individual feels such a strong urge to indulge in masochism then they are free to do so, but they are not free to inflict their beliefs on others. Reflecting one the comment by psychiatry on suicide, “the act or an instance of taking one’s own life”, we must underscore the three little words “one’s own life”. Christianity would deny us the right to claim our lives are our own. Rather they would suggest they are nothing more than leased property from God, and by committing suicide we are in violation of contract. Who recalls agreeing to live? We were all sired, begot and ejected into the world without a say in the matter. The individual has every right to feel aggrieved by this state of affairs!

Finally, both the Christian and the atheistic pro-lifer would argue that life is a miracle, it is sacred and special. This accusation must be fought. We live in an age where life has never been more commonplace. Neither is it special nor a gift from God. It is the resultant of biochemical reactions; just as any other sexually transmitted disease is for that matter. We can mass-produce life in the laboratory. The infertile can conceive, death can be postponed ever further and mortality rates have never been lower for any part of the demographic. Our life is our own. No one may tell us how to live it, or not to as the case may be. No one has the right to tell us to suffer. We live in democracy not hierocracy.

Now is the very age of life, and in this age the Christian must excuse us if we deem science, and not God, to be delivering us. Intelligence is finally turning the tide against superstition.

By E Hallam