Where Is Attempting Suicide Illegal?
And yes, this is in 2020
I recently wrote about whether or not the wording “ committed suicide” was likely to be an effective target for anti-stigma messaging. A commenter mentioned that in their home country, suicide was only decriminalized quite recently. That got me curious about where attempting suicide is illegal to this day.
Why suicide first became illegal
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives some background on how suicide came to be illegal in the first place. The earliest clear indications of the development of these views came in the 5th century CE, when St. Augustine wrote that suicide violated the biblical fifth commandment that “thou shalt not kill.” Thus, he declared, it was an unrepentable sin.
It was with St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century that this belief really started to get widespread traction. He argued that suicide nullified a person’s relationship with God by violating His dominion over the person’s life. In Medieval times, the corpses of those who suicided were desecrated and weren’t permitted a Christian burial, and their property was confiscated. This was based in both law and common practice.
Aquinas’ beliefs eventually made their way into English common law. A BBC article says that at that time, “For a death to be declared a ‘Felo de se’, Latin for ‘felon of himself’, an old legal term for suicide, it had to be proved the person was sane.” It was only if the person was proven to be sane that they were denied a Christian burial. Whatever that ended up looking like in practice, the idea that mentally-ill-person-suicide would not have been a felony is quite interesting.
Wikipedia, citing a couple of what appear to be high-quality sources, says that the punishment for suicide in a 1670 ordinance by King Louis XIV of France was:
“… the dead person’s body was drawn through the streets, face down, and then hung or thrown on a garbage heap. Additionally, all of the person’s property was confiscated.”
How delightful.
With Great Britain’s prolific colonization, the influence of Aquinas’ beliefs became even more widespread after the Middle Ages.
This was the first I’d ever read about the origins of suicide stigma, and I actually find the lack of linkage to mental illness rather fascinating. It’s also an interesting example of how problematic quirks of English common law were able to get flung far and wide.
Western countries
The UK decriminalized attempting suicide in 1961, and Canada followed in 1972.
It’s difficult to find a clear date for the U.S., presumably because it’s covered by state rather than federal law. According to a 1914 article in the Virginia Law Review, at that time, New York, North Dakota, and South Dakota had statutes making attempted suicide a felony.
Maryland was the last state to finally clear out straggler colonial legislation around suicide. In 2019, the state passed House Bill 77 repealing the piece of law that criminalized attempted suicide. According to the Washington Post, this law had been adopted from English common law back when Maryland was still a British colony.
What India’s up to
Attempting suicide was illegal in India for over 150 years under section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, with a punishment of up to 1 year in prison. This was introduced under British rule in 1860.
An article in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry explains that in 2017, parliament passed the Mental Healthcare Act. Section 115 of this Act included the statement that “Notwithstanding anything contained in Section 309 of the IPC, any person who attempts to die by suicide shall be presumed, unless proved otherwise, to have severe stress and shall not be tried and punished under the said Code.”
While it’s positive that India has done something, the penal code section that made attempting suicide wasn’t repealed; it was simply shuffled off to the side with a notwithstanding clause. And “unless proved otherwise”? Is that really a door that needs to be left open?
Other countries
A review in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry of suicide laws around the globe found that, in 2015, 25 out of 192 independent countries and states have laws against attempted suicide. An additional 20 countries follow Sharia law, which allows for the punishment of suicide attempts, although suicided isn’t mentioned explicitly.
Actual punishment doesn’t occur in most countries where attempting suicide is illegal. In some countries, such as Singapore, common practice is to not prosecute the first instance, but then treat subsequent attempts differently. Some states, such as Somaliland, do regularly jail suicide attempters.
The penal code of the Bahamas. Section 294 states that:
“Whoever attempts to commit suicide is guilty of a misdemeanour, and whoever abets the commission of suicide by any person shall, whether or not the suicide be actually committed, be liable to imprisonment for life.”
An article in the African Journal of Criminology & Justice Studies noted that many of the countries where suicide remains illegal are former British colonies (yeah thanks, Aquinas!). Among nine African countries where suicide is illegal, there’s variable enforcement. Ghana was cited as an example of a country that regularly enforces laws against suicide, with attempters potentially receiving jail time, a heavy fine, or a combination fo both.
The Wikipedia article on suicide legislation has charts with data for countries worldwide. For quite a few countries, the status is unknown. I’m not sure how accurate their list is, but it says that suicide is illegal in the following countries:
- Africa: Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda
- Americas: Bahamas, Guyana
- Asia: Bangladesh, Brunei, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Syria, U.A.E., Yemen
- Europe: Cyprus, Georgia
- Oceania: Papua New Guinea
What this means
There aren’t that many countries still stuck in the dark ages, but still, it’s far too many. I’d be curious to know if these laws remain on the books because of actual preference, or because it’s status quo and no one talks about mental illness and/or suicide enough to get any wheels in motion for change. Regardless of how much there is of the former, I’m guessing there’s a great deal of the latter.
In terms of where to go from here, I’m not sure. I don’t think the countries where we’re privileged enough to be talking about language around suicide overlap with the countries where this remains a legal issue. No country is going to change these laws because of what people from other countries are blathering on about. I don’t see this as a subject where government to government pressure is going to happen; there’s so much shit going down in the world for this to make it onto the intergovernmental stage.
I suppose that what we can hope that creating dialogue online will help to empower potential activists in these countries with regressive law to push for change. And if Maryland didn’t get its shit together until 2019, we can probably expect that it’s going to take a while in other countries too.
Although it may take a while, there is no reason deeming suicide a crime should be considered acceptable.
Originally published at https://mentalhealthathome.org on August 25, 2020.
