State-assisted suicide

State-assisted suicide

State-assisted suicide is the use of government to commit suicide. It is usually committed by committing a capital crime and receiving a capital punishment.

State-assisted suicide was a popular method in Medieval and Enlightment Era ScandinaviaFact|date=October 2008, where religion forbade suicide and suicidees were prohibited from religious burial. The usual method was to kill an infantFact|date=October 2008 - infanticide was a capital crime, and infants were considered as pure and sinless, and subjects of automatic salvation. The death penalty, usually by beheading, gave the condemned a chance to atone his or her sins before death.

Timothy McVeigh, who had contemplated suicide in the past, famously called his execution "state-assisted suicide." [http://archives.cnn.com/2001/fyi/news/06/11/mcveigh.execution/] Zacarias Moussaoui also sought to kill himself through the justice system. [http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus35/zacarias-moussaoui-2006.pdf] A typical strategy for this purpose is to commit a capital offense and then refuse to plea bargain in the face of overwhelming evidence, all the while showing no remorse and making statements calculated to cause grave offense. It has been noted that "prisoner-assisted homicide" would be a more accurate label, since if a death row inmate seeks to commit actual suicide, the state will make every effort toprevent it. [http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR511282006?open&of=ENG-2M4]

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