Suicide - A Christian Perspective
By Keith W Munday
What causes people to want to take their own lives? There
must be some strong compelling force to bring them to such a final and
irrevocable decision.
Until recent times suicide or felo-de-se, (literally felon
of himself) was regarded as a criminal act, and the aiding or abetting of it
still is. There was the case of Mrs Pretty who wanted her husband to help her
end her life because of her unbearable illness. She took her case to the
European Court of Human Rights but it failed. She did die naturally a few
months afterwards.
The perpetrator of suicide obviously could not be charged,
but certain things that followed showed society's attitude to it. There was a
time when the body would be buried at a cross-road with a stake driven through
it. This may have been something to do with eastern European folklore belief in
vampires, but that barbaric procedure ended in 1834.
When a suicide takes place the coroner orders an inquest to
establish the cause of death. Was it accidental such as the unintentional
taking of a drug overdose? Was the deceased murdered by a third party who
staged the circumstances to look like a suicide? Or a person using a gun at the
time could have been killed if it back-fired.
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