My virtuous suicide

“Please switch me off”, I said.

My partner was distraught at the idea. Our discussion happened over dinner in a restaurant.

“There is no quality of life and it also diminishes the quality of life of the loved-ones. Not to mention the extreme emotional and financial strain put on everyone. So, by all means, pull the plug!”

If ever I’m in a vegetative state, kept alive by machines, that is my wish. She, of course, was very shocked at my candid (and probably somewhat logically-cold) utterance.

Does this constitute as suicide and mortal sin? I don’t think so. Sin, is primarily selfishness. My wish to be “switched off” is primarily unselfish. I know the extreme strain, both emotionally and financially, caused by a terminally ill family member. Rather have them cherish the sweet memories of me, than stain their memories with suffering, toil, serious financial strain, and the like.

Furthermore, suicide, although easy to judge by the clergy, is not as straight forward at all. Firstly, people that commit suicide are usually not healthy – suffering from serious clinical depression. Chemically they are imbalanced, and do not think straight. Their actions are skewed by a mental illness, and I’m convinced that God, far more than man, will take this into account.

But my choice to have the “plug pulled” is a cognitive decision which I’m making now, while I’m in a healthy mental state. And this brings me to my second point. In Scripture there are at least two examples of people that committed suicides of sort, which we deduce from the contexts were not considered sins. The first is Samson who asked God to give him strength to kill some Philistines and himself:

“And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life” (Jdg 16:28-30).

The other is the Passion of Jesus. Jesus knew very well that His return to Jerusalem would certain His death. In fact, it was His mission to die for humanity. Wasn’t this, in a sense, a suicide mission? Of course, not selfish suicide, but in fact, unselflish suicide. And I guess that is my point. Suicide, whether active or passive, can be a selfish and therefore sinful act, or unselfish and therefore a virtuous act. Obviously on a cosmic scale, as in the case of Jesus, it is much easier to discern whether it was selfish or unselfish. In our own lives it becomes much harder to distinguish the morality of suicide. But still, it doesn’t negate the possibility of unselfish suicide. I am of the opinion that my current clear-headed decision to have the machines switched of in case of a possible future situation of a vegetative state is primarily an unselfish act. I wish to spare my family grave continuous emotional and financial suffering.

Some might say that it is just masked selfishness – I just selfishly do not wish to be in a vegetative state. Which is true; I do not wish to be in a vegetative state with no quality of life. But me not wanting to be in a vegetative state doesn’t equal me being selfish. Selfishness means something done at the expense of someone else.