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Assisted suicide in prison?
The prison suicide of Harold Shipman, a British doctor who became one of the worst serial killers of all time, has resulted in a surprising campaign to promote more suicides.

Britain's Inspectorate of Prisons says that the suicide rates in U.K. jails are about two a week, and some pundits want to see it climb even higher.

Much of the controversy stems from British Home Secretary David Blunkett's response to Shipman's death. "You wake up and you receive a phone call—Shipman's topped himself," he said last week. "You have just got to think for a minute: is it too early to open a bottle? And then you discover that everybody's very upset that he's done it."

But knowing that you'll spend the rest of your life in a cell is "a horrifying way for any human being to die, whatever they may have done," Mark Leech writes in Sunday's Independent. "For 'whole life' prisoners who have no hope there has to be a more humane way out of life, where intent can be independently verified and clarity of thought confirmed, where individuals can say their 'goodbyes' and with dignity check out of a life they no longer have the will to live."

Harry MacKenney, who was given a "whole life" sentence before being cleared of murder, made the same argument in widely quoted remarks to Leech's ConVerse Monthly Prison News. "The 20-odd people who are in the position that I was in ought to be given a way out by the State instead of festering in prison year after year only to die a horrible death at the end of ripped bedsheets dangling from their cell bars," he said. "I had reached such depths of absolute despair that I was prepared to sacrifice the whole of my future rather than spend one more day in prison but I did not have the courage to go through with it. If I had been given a handful of tablets or an injection I would definitely have taken my own life. Death is a fairer place than being locked away for life."

Tim Lott is less direct in a Guardian op-ed, but he praises Shipman and suicide bombers for "maintaining a sense of selfhood" in their deaths. "Suicide is an assertion that you will survive as an identity even if you can't survive as a body. … Suicide is the ultimate act of will and, as such, always appeals to those who are overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness."

Ultimately, Lott doesn't embrace suicide as a "humane way out of life," like Leech, but he concludes, "suicides aren't all weird, or wicked, or tragic, or cowardly. They're just like us—only more so."

Fortunately, there are those on the other side, who say that prison suicides aren't causing enough outrage. "In an age obsessed with reasons for violence, children hanging themselves in prisons where they should never be causes no ripple," Mary Riddell writes in The Observer. "Nor do the deaths, highlighted by Mind, of psychiatric patients in custody."

Christianity Today has published several articles on suicide, including a biblical analysis, a profile of a suicide prevention ministry, and an article by Lew Smedes on whether suicide is unforgivable.

Will NCAA bust Arkansas quarterback for supporting evangelist?
The web site of Arkansas evangelist Phil Smith may have included a violation of NCAA guidelines before it was pulled from the Internet, reports The Morning News of Springdale, Arkansas. (The story was picked up by the Associated Press.)

"We'd like you to know that a weekend evangelistic program featuring evangelist Phil Smith and Razorbacks football star Matt Jones is available to you," said a November 15 posting on the ministry's web site. "Phil Smith met Matt Jones while leading a Bible study in his home for the church youth group. When Phil recently responded to the call of God to focus his life exclusively on evangelism, Matt wanted to be a part of the work God was doing through Phil. The two have developed a strong bond in the past several years and they have begun to work together to reach young people for Jesus."

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January (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48