Bible and Mission

Introduction This chapter samples positions for and against physician assisted suicide.  It includes statements in the United Kingdom and the United States of America (California) and makes special note of Christian groups opposed to suicide and assisted suicide.  By noting the proposed regulations for assisted suicide, we can see what an immense project this becomes once one allows the possibility of institutional support for suicide. Privatised and National Health Systems We should consider the differences between countries without government funding of health care and countries with such funding and oversight: US-style privatised medicine has a perverse incentive to keep the patient alive with increasingly extreme and expensive (but ultimately futile) interventions….   UK-style socialised medicine has an equal and opposite perverse incentive to reduce the number of patients, especially in times of crisis. [1] Cajetan Skowronski adds that giving oversight of suic...

  Mental disorders account for many suicides.  In this brief essay, the relationship between mental disorders and suicide will be explored in accordance with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , or DSM-5.  The evidence provides a warning that persons seeking suicide to end their misery are persons who need care, perhaps professional care.  Offering them suicide instead, even offering suicide as though it is a caring and kind solution, is in truth a failure to show compassion and to provide care. For example, cases of assisted suicide in the Netherlands, assisted suicide is permissive.  People without physical disorders and merely mental anguish may receive assistance in suicide.  This permissiveness has led to an increase in suicides.  Among persons suffering from psychological distress, suicide increased by 60% between 2023 and 2024. [1] In 2020, 88 cases of assisted suicide for psychological reasons were reported.  The in...