Suicide

The suicide, by Édouard Manet.

Suicide is when a person chooses to kill him or herself. The word suicide is from the Latin words sui caedere, which means "to kill oneself". In English, when someone kills himself, people say that he "commits suicide". Doctors consider suicide attempts to be a symptom of a serious depression. Suicide is a crime in some places, and it is considered a sin in many religions.

Views of suicide

Medical

Modern medicine treats suicide as a mental health issue. When a person starts having many thoughts about killing his or her self, it is considered a medical emergency. Psychologists say that people who are planning to kill themselves should tell someone immediately. This is especially important if the person already has found a way of killing themselves. People who are depressed are considered a "high-risk" group for suicide. Suicide hotlines are available. Using these hotlines, people can tell someone about their thoughts and plans of suicide. People at the hotline may then find a way to solve these problems, so that the caller has no need to kill themselves. Self-esteem is also considered important to prevent suicide by World Health Organization.

Cultural

In the Warring States Period and the Edo period of Japan, samurai who disgraced their honour chose to end their own lives by harakiri (hara means stomach and kiri means cut) or seppuku.

The cut is usually performed diagonally from the top corner of the hand that the samurai uses to write with, and it has long been considered an honourable form of death (even when done to punish dishonour). Though obviously such a wound would be fatal, seppuku was not always technically suicide because the samurai's assistant (the kaishaku) would stand by to kill the samurai by decapitating them to end the suffering, sometimes as soon as the first incision into the abdomen was made.

Religion

Abrahamic, Dharmic, and Taoistic religions all think that suicide is a bad thing.

Abrahamic religions

The Abrahamic religions, (like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) think that life is sacred. They believe that by killing yourself, you are murdering what God has made, which is bad. For this reason, a person who commits suicide is believed to go to hell by many followers of Abrahamic religions.

Dharmic and Taoist

The Dharmic and Taoist religions (like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto) while having their differences, agree largely on their views to suicide. These people do not believe suicide is a good thing because they believe that someone who commits suicide will be reincarnated in the next life with a less enlightened soul. However, many people of these religions are more likely to commit suicide because they believe that there will be a next life. They think that by committing suicide, they may have a better chance in the next life.

Suicide as a weapon

Suicide is sometimes used as a form of killing other people. For example, the Kamikazes.

Other pages

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Suicide

• Euthanasia
• Suicide pact
• Warning signs of suicide