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Suicide is the intentional act of killing oneself. The individual who commits suicide commits an act of murder or unlawful execution upon the self, is in control of the time, the place, the means, the motive and the opportunity. In rare societies, suicide has been considered a point of honor; as an obligation of the individual who has failed in society some way and who is encouraged to execute him or herself, taking the matter out of the hands of society or of the authorities.

In most societies in the developed world, suicide is either regarded as a crime, or as a symptom of physical or mental illness where the suffering is so profound that the person commits the ultimate harm to him or herself in order to end suffering. In most religions in the developed world, suicide is, by logic,a mortal sin, as the act cannot be forgiven because the individual dies before he or she can repent, make atonement and thus receive redemption.

Under common law, most successful suicides originally resulted in punishment in the form of fines or confiscation of the assets of the estate. Today, there is no prosecution of those who have committed suicide unless they have caused the death of others in the process of committing the act. Then, depending on whether an individual can be proved to have deliberately caused the additional deaths, or whether they were by accident, the person can be convicted, postmortem, of either murder or manslaughter. This is the legal mechanism which assigns a felony status that allows justice and restitution to the victim's survivors from the person's estate.

When people commit suicide disguised as some other form of death to defraud insurance companies, a crime has been committed but any detailed investigation ensues in order to determine whether the life and other insurance claims should be paid or denied to the beneficiaries and to punish anyone who is proven to have conspired to assist the suicide or to commit fraud.

Suicide is clearly not a legal right in most developed countries, and is only sanctioned by religions that have taken a deviant path.

As a moral right, the only area of growing consensus is in euthanasia, which is defined as a painless way of ending the life of a person who is suffering greatly from a mortal physical condition or terminal illness. There is an ongoing battle in many countries to make determinations as to whether euthanasia should be allowed. This battle engages the medical profession, which is adamantly against it, the religious orders that consider it unacceptable for any reasons, and people in general, who are divided on the issue. The hospice method of end stage care, which includes extraordinary pain management options, is an alternative to euthanasia.

As a result of the ongoing debate about euthanasia for the horrifically suffering, and for the suffering of those who have profound mental illness, the moral and ethical issues of an individual having the right to end his or her own life are cloudy at best.

Learn more about this author, Elizabeth M. Young.
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