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4 September
According to those who know that suicide was once a criminal offence, using the word 'commit' to describe the action of carrying out suicide suggests that it is a crime.
The Suicide Act 1961*, in section 1, enacted as this Tweet says :
Suicide Act 1961 : The rule of law whereby it is a crime for a person to commit suicide is hereby abrogated (s. 1), but crimes in s. 2 ->
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 5, 2013
Aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring is what section 2 is concerned with, or as this Tweet says :
1961 Act : s. 2(1) refers to 'an attempt by another to commit suicide' - s. 1 says it's not a crime, so how is 'commit' saying otherwise ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 5, 2013
In essence, what I am trying to use a Tweet to say is this :
If section 1 makes clear that committing suicide is not a crime any longer, because of the passing of the Act, how can anyone construe the use of the phrase 'commit suicide' in sections 1 and 2 as saying that it is a crime (or that it suggests that it is) ?
Was Parliament really incapable of saying what it meant in 1961 ? If no one since the last few years thought that the phrase commit suicide suggested a crime was involved, why do we suddenly need to infer a conscience about what 'commit' + 'suicide' means fifty odd years later ?
Training courses once had it that people had to say thought-shower or some such on the basis that brainstorm was a term offensive to those with epilepsy or similar conditions - this was taught, that those using the word 'brainstorm' were, albeit unwittingly, hurting others. Except that other trainers, who worked with such people liable to be offended, said that it was nonsense, a myth - a myth that gave some trainers power over those attending their courses by making them seem wise...
I no more see any basis for saying that commit suicide is insensitive and needs to be avoided than in the case of brainstorm - it is an attempt to reclaim a non-criminalizing feel for suicide when it is, after all, an act in the way that bankruptcy is an act. People believe in debtors' prisons and in owing money as punishable by the criminal courts, but there is nothing that can be pointed to that suggests it, other than people not knowing what criminal justice and civil justice are.
If people believe that suicide is a crime, some religions may teach that it is, but I cannot see how an Act of Parliament that abolished a crime can be wrong in referring to the act of suicide as something that one commits, just as one commits an act of folly, an act of bankruptcy, an act of kindness.
Does anyone really believe committing a selfless act is a crime, because of the word 'commit' ? I honestly do not think so.
End-notes
* Its full title is 'An Act to amend the law of England and Wales relating to suicide, and for purposes connected therewith', but section 3 lets us shorten it.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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