Decriminalising suicide could lower incidence rate

Posed photo of a person with depression. Abetment of attempted suicide continues to be an offence under the Criminal Law Reform Bill proposed in Parliament on Feb 11. PHOTO: ST FILE

I applaud the move to finally decriminalise suicide, and lament the lingering resistance to it ('Do more to help those at risk of suicide', Feb 13; and Pitfalls of decriminalising attempted suicide, by Ms Ho Lay Ping, Feb 16).

Being familiar with mental health struggles and having experienced the suicides of two schoolmates, I empathise with Ms Ho's past struggle with suicide and congratulate her on her recovery.

However, I believe her fear of suicide decriminalisation is misguided.

While the "stigma associated with mental illness and suicide" may have prompted her to seek alternatives, it is presumptuous to assume that this applies to every suicidal person.

Further, the alternatives sought by someone so successfully deterred, such as self-harm, could be unhelpful and damaging.

There is much empirical evidence that stigmatising mental illness and suicide is more detrimental than beneficial to suicide prevention efforts and public mental health.

Much of this stigma is inherently attached to suicide criminality - the phrase "commit suicide" immediately labels the victim of mental illness as an offensive criminal.

There is further evidence that suicide decriminalisation lowers the number of successful suicides.

After suicide was decriminalised in England and Wales in 1961 by the Suicide Act, a statistical analysis conducted by the Office of National Statistics from 1961 to 1974 found that as a whole, suicide rates declined.

Cheng Zimin

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 22, 2019, with the headline Decriminalising suicide could lower incidence rate. Subscribe