Concerning Suicide

Once a schoolmaster, the Archbishop of Canterbury relentlessly assigns papers to his church--and on subjects fit to make a county curate spill his tea. In recent years the Anglican Church has issued opinions on artificial insemination, birth control, homosexuality and prostitution. Out last week was the latest: Ought Suicide to be a Crime?

The 56-page pamphlet is the work of a five-man committee appointed by the Archbishop in March 1958 under the chairmanship of J. T. (for John Traill) Christie, principal of Oxford's Jesus College. The committee members (a lawyer, a psychiatrist, a philosopher and a theologian) investigated the subject of self-destruction from almost every conceivable angle--historical, legal, medical, moral--and came to the conclusion that considerably more charity is needed all around.

"Most Fatal Sin." Suicide was not always frowned on; in eight instances in the Bible*suicide is not mentioned in condemnation, and the ancients in the Hellenic times tended to look upon the power to take one's own life as an inalienable privilege. But St. Thomas Aquinas summed up the reason for the Roman Catholic Church's severity toward suicide when he wrote: "[It] is the most fatal of sins, because it cannot be repented of." Protestantism was even harder on suicides than Catholicism.

State backed up church with its own sanctions. In England until 1823 a suicide's body was buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart; until 1882 it was buried at night. All the property of a suicide was confiscated until 1870. Today in England, suicide is still considered at law a felony (both in England and the U.S. an attempted suicide is a misdemeanor).

This legal attitude, says the Anglican committee, is plainly wrong, and "public opinion has outstripped the law. With regard to attempted suicide, the law is not uniformly enforced, and it ought to be repealed or amended." The committee recommends that in addition to abolishing the felony of suicide, a new offense should be written into law "of aiding, abetting or instigating the suicide of another."

Running Away. For those who commit suicide, the committee recommends a special burial service. Those who are tempted or fail in an attempt should "be specially commended to the pastoral concern of the clergy," and the clergy should be "offered more help in understanding this part of their pastoral duty."

Explaining the report on the BBC last week, Committee Chairman Christie summed up: "If any member of the committee were asked if he considered suicide wrong he would say it was. Of course there are always exceptions. But in general, Christians--who are a minority in this country at present--would say no man or woman had the right to terminate life entrusted to him by God. There is also a feeling that to take one's own life when things are difficult is rather like running away in battle. On the other hand psychologists have made us more tolerant than we used to be ... To punish by fine or imprisonment someone who found life intolerable and tried to end it is ridiculous."

/Judges 9:54 (Abimelech), Judges 16:30 (Samson), / Samuel 31'4-5 (Saul and his armor bearer), // Samuel 17:23 (Ahithophel), I Kings 16:18 (Zimri), // Maccabees 14:41 (Razis), Matthew 27:5 (Judas), Acts 16:27 (the jailer).

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