The liberal, humanist case against assisted suicide...

...I agree.

Interesting how a libertarian source like Spiked can run so often against the conventional mores.

Robin Williams, RIP.

The Guardian chooses now to tear down the stigma attached to the act of suicide:

//A brilliant but tortured individual has taken his own life, and this is a tragedy. But levelling ignorant accusations of selfishness certainly won’t prevent this from happening again. People should never be made to feel worse for suffering from something beyond their control.//

We should have pity for Robin Williams and sympathy for his family.  We will never know, but we should charitably indulge the assumption that Williams was irrational when - if - he killed himself.

But because we are rational, we should also be willing to describe suicide as a the epitome of a selfish act.  Suicide damages the people left behind and it is the ultimate statement of an ego demanding that its wants be satisfied no matter who else is damaged.

We should also clearly teach that suicide is evil because that teaching - the moral opprobrium and shame associated with the act - may have some deterrent value on the margins, more at least than a social acceptance of suicide as something that, you know, some people just do.

Odd Factoid.

Protestant countries have higher suicide rates.

Religion may play a role in determining whether someone will take their own life, suggests new research that shows suicide rates are higher in Protestant countries than in Catholic ones.

Researchers from the University of Warwick in England analyzed data from Prussia in the 19th and 21st centuries, as well as modern data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

"We used the 19th century data because at this time virtually everyone adhered to a religious denomination and religion pervaded virtually all aspects of life. In Prussia, both Protestants and Catholics were non-minorities living together in one state and the two religions give a basis for comparison," lead author Sascha Becker said in a press release.

"The results were quite striking, in the 19th century suicide rates among Protestants in Prussia were roughly three times as high as among Catholics."

To broaden their perspective, the researchers also looked at data from 10 OECD countries in which either Protestants or Catholics still made up more than 85% of the population in 2000. The suicide rate in Protestant countries was 15.5 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants compared to 8.9 suicides in Catholic countries.

"Even today, countries that are majority Protestant tend to have substantially higher suicide rates than those which are majority Catholic, suggesting that the relation of religion and suicide remains a vital topic," said Becker, adding that the two religions' views on individuality and sin could be a factor.

"When life hits hard, a Catholic can rely on a stronger community which might help him to cope. Secondly, Protestantism stresses the importance of God's grace alone and not by any merit of man's own work, whereas Catholicism allows for God's judgment to be affected by man's deeds and sins. As a consequence, committing suicide entails the prospect of foregoing paradise for Catholics but not for Protestants," Becker said.

What's more, Catholics believe in confessing sins, and suicide is the only sin you can't confess.

A couple of other things occur to me. For example, Protestant countries are northern, with longer winters, and, therefore, more "seasonal affective disorders." Further, one wonders how much the social sanction against suicide might cause families and governments to classify suicides as some other kind of death.

In any event, it seems like an interesting correlation.