Was it Suicide?

I have seen a couple of social media posts where some have questioned whether or not Steve’s death was a form of suicide.  After all, the announcement we made included the fact: “He had cancer and heart disease. Both conditions were initially treatable, but he declined treatment.”  So that brings up the moral question: If you decline treatment for something, is that the same thing as committing suicide?

Before answering this broadly, we can first look at the specifics as it relates to Steve Hays.  If you read his memoir, A Backward Providence, you will see that when Steve was in his thirties, he was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia (p. 65).  At the bottom of that same page, he notes: “…I was thirty-five, which is a very different time of life. I had far more to live for. I underwent the full course of treatment.”

So Steve had already gone through the treatment he subsequently refused back when, as he pointed out, he had far more to live for.  There are a couple of ways you could parse that phrase, but included in it would definitely be the fact that at thirty-five you are much closer to your prime than when you are sixty years old.  You have more strength and vigor.  You don’t have as many aches and pains.  In addition, Steve was 35 years old in 1994. He still had both parents at that time (his father passed away in 1999, and Steve became the caretaker for his mother until she passed away in 2013).  When he was diagnosed with the recurrence, he had none of that remaining: no youthful strength, no family to take care of, and the long pain of Fibromyalgia, in addition to other health issues.

Knowing this will address a couple of other things raised by other individuals.  Since Steve was a Calvinist, some have questioned whether he had decided to “accept his fate.”  But Calvinism is not fatalism, so that’s already framing the issue incorrectly.  Steve clearly held to the belief that predestination included the means, not just the end, and “means” included the ability to use doctors for treatment of normal diseases.  So it was not due to a belief that God had predestined him to die that he refused treatment, for he would have held that God had predestined him to use doctors to fight against his disease had he wanted to fight the disease.

Somewhat ironically, another person speculated that perhaps Steve was trying to get God to heal him miraculously.  This is due to the fact that Steve was not a full cessationist and had argued against some cessationists in the past.  However, when you read A Backward Providence, it is very clear that Steve was ready to die.  He didn’t want God to heal him, although if God had done so Steve would have accepted it as God’s desire.  But as mentioned above, he had less to live for as he aged.  So, he prepared himself for his death, and he was ready to meet his Savior.

To add a bit of my own speculation (since Steve and I never talked about this point directly), I also think that since Steve went through the full treatment already, he knew what kind of toll it would have on his body.  And he also knew that “treatment” wasn’t the same thing as “cure” and there’s a good chance he would not have wanted to add another couple of years to his life just to have to go through the same painful treatment again and again until it finally killed him.  Add on the reality that treatment can be expensive, so those painfully extended years might have come at the cost of Steve being forced to live on the streets, unable to blog or to do anything he considered useful.

So those are some specifics in dealing with Steve’s death itself.  But while that may perhaps give us understanding for why Steve chose not to get treatment, it does not yet answer the question of whether it was morally licit for Steve to decline treatment.  So let us examine the moral question.

First is the question: what is suicide?  At a simple level, suicide is deliberately taking an action, the result of which will knowingly cause the end of one’s life.  But even this simple definition needs to be examined.  I can immediately think of a counter: if a soldier sees an enemy about to shoot his friend, and he leaps in front of the bullet and subsequently dies, he has deliberately taken an action that ended his own life.  Yet hardly anyone would view such a death to be suicide.  It was instead noble.  Indeed, Jesus Himself would declare such an action to be that of which there is no greater love (John 15:13).

There is also the fact that refusing to do something is not the same thing as deliberately taking an action.  That is, it was not Steve taking an action that resulted in his disease not being treated—it was the absence of an action that resulted in the disease not being treated.  So defining suicide as "deliberately taking an action that will end one's life" clearly would not apply.

So let us amend it slightly.  "Suicide is deliberately taking an action, or refusing to take an action, the result of which will knowingly end one's life." And that brings us to the crux.  If refusing to take an action to save one’s life results in one’s death, is that suicide or not? 

It's perhaps beneficial to look at the conundrum slightly differently.  When Terri Schiavo was being kept alive with a feeding tube, pro-life activists argued that removing the feeding tube would be murder.  Under the same logic, if one chose to remove one’s own feeding tube, would that be suicide?

The Terri Schiavo case helps us examine this philosophically.  Why was it that removing a feeding tube was considered tantamount to murder by the pro-life side?  After all, the opposition to the pro-life crowd pointed out:  “We’re not killing her.  We are just removing the feeding tube and letting nature take its course.”

But of course, if you keep anyone from food, then “nature’s course” is death.

This brought up the key distinction in the ethical debate.  Terri Schiavo was not on a ventilator or heart bypass machine.  She could breathe on her own, and her heart beat on its own.  What kept her from dying was the nutrition her feeding tube gave her.  Nutrition—the same thing that keeps all of us from dying.  The pro-life argument had been that there was no medical issue with refusing extra-ordinary treatment, but ordinary care that everyone needs for basic survivability could not be turned off without resulting in murder.  In other words, turning off a heart bypass machine resulting in the death of the patient would not constitute murder because hearts beat on their own naturally, but because everyone needs food to survive then depriving her of food was tantamount to murder because everyone needs food to survive.

This moral argument clearly made sense to a lot of pro-life adherents, myself included, and so using that same principal we can ask: is chemotherapy ordinary or extra-ordinary treatment?  Chemotherapy is poisonous.  The hope is that the cancer cells die before all the healthy cells die.  Given that, if you are healthy and you take chemotherapy, only bad things could possibly happen to you.  Clearly chemotherapy is not ordinary care, like food and water are.  This means that under the same principal that it is moral to turn off a heart bypass machine because of it being extra-ordinary care, so too one can refuse chemotherapy without it constituting suicide.

Of course one could still object that this is just a philosophy argument, not Biblical.  The Bible may still forbid one to refrain from doing anything possible to stay alive.  To that, I would respond: “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?”  These words from Jesus recorded in Matthew 26:53 show that Jesus could have done much to keep Himself from the crucifixion.  Does the fact that He did not act to save Himself, knowing full well that He would die if He did not act, mean that He committed suicide?  Clearly not!

So there is at least one example where not choosing to save one’s own life does not constitute suicide.  Indeed, I would suspect that no one could come up with an example where someone does nothing at all to save their life—while also not doing anything active to endanger it—where that would be classified as a suicide.  Regardless, the onus is on the person who says that refusing treatment for a disease is equivalent to suicide to prove that it is.

At the end of the day, I think it’s clear both from philosophy and theology that there is no rational basis to claim that there is a moral imperative to prolong one’s life using extra-ordinary means.  There’s no admonition against it either.  So when faced with two options, neither of which is sinful, then whichever option is chosen is, by definition, not sinful to take.

Homosexual suicide rates

Christopher Yuan:

We are no longer accused of just being hateful; now we’re accused of being “harmful”, that Christian perspectives are actually hurting people, and killing people. According to those who oppose us, gay young people are committing suicide today, because of our perspective. That’s a pretty serious claim, which I’ve considered. Am I causing harm? That’s the last thing we want to do. The claim is that Evangelicals who believe that same-sex behavior is sinful, cause stigma which drives suicide rates up. However, what’s quite interesting is if you go to the Netherlands, one of the most gay-affirming countries in the world, there is very little Evangelical Christian presence, and same-sex marriage has been legal for years – and affirmation of gay relationships amongst young people is normal; you would expect suicide rates to be down. But they are not. In fact, gay teen suicide rates are higher than amongst their counterparts.

Your life is not your own

You are not your own; you were bought at a price (1 Cor 6:19-20). 

1. Scripture says nothing directly about the permissibility or impermissibility of suicide, so evangelicals fall back on inferences from general biblical principles and cautionary tales in Scripture. 

1 Cor 6:19-20 is cited as an indirect prooftext to show that suicide is intrinsically wrong. I'll get to that in a moment.

My own position is that suicide is a special case of taking human life in general, like other special cases of taking human life. Taking human life is generally wrong, but there are exceptions, like executing a murderer or killing a sniper to save the school children. 

By the same token, I think suicide is prima-facie wrong, but there are situations where that's overridden. Take the soldier who throws himself on a grenade to shield his comrades from being killed or maimed. That's altruistic suicide.

If you think suicide is intrinsically wrong, you might be conflicted about that example. Presumably, you think what the soldier did was noble. You don't wish to condemn him. So you might try to classify his action as something else. But I think that's special pleading. The only reason to classify it as something else is if you think suicide is necessarily wrong.

If, on the other hand, you think suicide is contingently wrong, then circumstances determine the morality or immorality of that action. BTW, I'm not saying circumstances determine the morality or immorality of every action. Some actions are intrinsically wrong. They can't be justified by good results or the avoidance of bad results.

2. Back to the prooftext. It lays out a general principle that's germane to suicide (among other things). But does it make suicide inherently wrong?

St. Paul himself had a high-risk lifestyle. When he was initially put on trial he had a chance to get off on a technicality. But instead he appealed to Caesar because he wanted to witness to the Roman higher echelon. He deliberately endangered his life when he had an out. And, indeed, he died a martyr. 

The problem with the appeal to 1 Cor 6:19-20 to prove that suicide is always wrong is that it fails to distinguish between putting yourself in harm's way and putting others in harm's way. There are situations where it's permissible or obligatory to endanger yourself to save another or others but impermissible to endanger others. That despite situations where both of belong to God, you were bought with a price. 

Suppose a man and a woman are waiting for an elevator when they're approached by gang members. In one scenario, the man rushes into the elevator, but pushes the woman away, to make his escape while they direct their attention at the hapless woman. In another scenario, he pushes the woman into the elevator and confronts the gang, even though he's outnumbered and bound to lose–to buy her time to escape.

Even if, in both cases, their life is not their own, there's still a moral difference between risky heroism and risking the life of another. So the general principle is too indiscriminate to rule out suicide regardless of the circumstances. 

Severe depression

As many have already heard, Jarrid Wilson committed suicide. Wilson was a 30 year old pastor in California who apparently had a lifelong struggle with depression.

In the relatively recent past, there have been other young evangelical Christians who have committed suicide as well. For example, Rick Warren's son Matthew shot and killed himself at age 27 in 2013. Also another pastor in California named Andrew Stoecklein took his own life at age 30.

I don't wish to comment on the ethics of suicide at this moment. Besides, other Christians like Steve have commented on suicide in the past and said far more intelligent and helpful things than I ever could.

Rather I'll just offer a useful screening tool for people who suspect they might be depressed or know those whom they suspect might be depressed. Not that all suicide attempts and suicides are necessarily related to depression but the majority are related to severe depression.

In any case, the "tool" is simply a series of questions that physicians (such as psychiatrists) will ask a person whom they suspect might be depressed to help determine if they are depressed and, if so, the severity of their depression. If they are severely depressed, as opposed to mild or moderate depression, it could mean they're at risk of suicide.

It's taken from a British book called the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Specialties (10th ed.), p 345:

We use a similar but not as memorable mnemonic in the US. They're different mnemonics but the same ideas or concepts underlie both.

You can click on both images to enlarge if need be.

For example, a physician will ask a person how many hours they're sleeping each night, how often, if they're tossing and turning or able to sleep right away. What they find enjoyable (e.g. reading books, watching movies, listening to music, taking walks on the beach) and how frequently they do these things. If they feel embarrassed or guilty of anything. How they feel when they're awake. If they're chronically tired. How well they can concentrate on small, medium, and big tasks. If they're under or over eating. How they're functioning at work and play. If they have made any well formulated plans to commit suicide.

Epstein and assisted suicide

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/jeffrey-epstein-hyoid/

If it was "suicide," he had a lot of help :-)

Never ascribe to malice what may be explained by stupidity

There's a raging debate about how Jeffrey Epstein died: was he killed or did he kill himself? 

1. One explanation appeals to Hanlon's razor ("Never ascribe to malice what may be explained by stupidity"). Given overworked, underpaid prison guards with a low-prestige job, there's not much incentive to give it their best effort. And if they belong to public sector unions, which makes it virtually impossible to fire them, there's even less incentive to do a good job. All things being equal, incompetence is the default explanation. And I think that may well be the right explanation in the case of Epstein.

2. There are, however, other considerations:

• He was a sex-trafficker for the power elite. He had many powerful, well-connected clients who stood to benefit from silencing him before he could finger them. If you're doomed, you might as well take some others with you on the way down. You have nothing to lose. Let them share your fate. 

• A bombshell document was released the day before, naming some of his clients, with teasers about another anonymous clients. Naturally there was curiosity about the next names to drop. 

• I imagine it's not hard to put a hit on someone in prison. Heck, we read about drug lords who continue to run their operation behind bars. Prison guards are easily bribed.

3. So the timing of his death was very suspicious. But perhaps that was a coincidence. Coincidences happen in real life. 

4. Ordering a hit on a witness is risky. There's the danger that the hit will be traced by to the culprit. However, that's a comparative risk assessment. There's the opposite danger that the witness will implicate the culprit. So despite the risk, some witnesses are in fact bumped off. 

5. The ways to kill yourself in a prison cell must be quite limited. Since these are so limited and so well-known, they are easily eliminated. Don't architects  take that into account when designing prison cells? 

6. Thus far the official story is bureaucratic bungling. If, however, it was an inside job, then it's not surprising that culprits have a cover story. 

Mind you, that illustrates a danger of conspiracy theories, since almost anything can be made consistent with a conspiracy theory. So we need more than consistency to make it plausible. 

7. In addition, there are different ways a hit might be carried out. In the case of a suicidal witness who already has the motive to off himself, you just provide him with the means, and opportunity (unsupervised time). That's easy to cover up. If he doesn't take the bait, you might have a backup plan: bribe a prisoner serving a life sentence to kill him, in exchange for certain favors.

Was his death the result of foul play? Not having firm opinion one way or the other, I suspend judgment. 

Suicide by time-travel

i) Proabortionists often trot out situations where raising the child is a hardship on the mother. And there are undoubtedly situations where that's the case. 

Consider cases where raising the proabortionist was a hardship on the mother. Suppose the proabortionist could step into a time-machine, travel back into the past, and preempt his/her own conception, thereby sparing his/her mother the ordeal of having to raise the proabortionist. 

That would be both contraception by time-travel as well as suicide by time-travel. Or suicidal contraception by time-travel.  How many proabortionists would step into the time-machine to preempt their conception, so as to spare their mother the onerous experience of having to raise them? How many proabortionists would commit suicidal contraception if they had that opportunity? I daresay not a single one would care enough about the hardship their existence imposed on their mother to prevent their existence from ever happening. Proabortionists are far too selfish to be suicidally altruistic. 

ii) Now, I don't expect proabortionist to admit that. Since it's just hypothetical, it wouldn't cost them anything to lie about it. But it's a way of exposing their hypocrisy.

iii) In addition, sometimes you can plant an idea which will eventually cause a person to change their mind. They may not admit it to you at the time, yet it's something that never occurred to them, but once the idea is planted in their mind, it works its way through to the conclusion.

iv) A critic might object that my thought-experiment is unrealistic. It generates a classic time-travel antinomy, like the grandfather paradox. But that's irrelevant. The point of time-travel scenarios is to illustrate a principle in a picturesque way which makes it easier to grasp and appreciate. They can visualize the principle. It gives the principle a concrete setting. But the principle doesn't depend on the coherence of the illustration. It's just a fictional story. 

Extreme altruism

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13).

There can be a gray area between suicide and altruism. Suppose a father has a teenager son with liver disease. The son needs a liver transplant. Suppose the father contracts a type of cancer that's almost uniformly fatal. However, the cancer hasn't spread to the liver, and the father is a compatible donor. Would it be morally permissible, before metastasis kicks in, for the father to donate his liver to his ailing son? This will shorten the father's life. He has terminal cancer, but without a liver he will die in a few days.  

Two brothers

Logan's younger brother Nolan was a really nice kid, but he struggled with depression. Despite psychological counseling, nothing helped. He could never put his finger on why he felt that-he just did. He couldn't control it. He couldn't make it go away. Like trying to shake his own shadow. Much of the time he was borderline suicidal.

The only thing that kept him from going over the edge was Logan's constant companionship. He really needed his brother's emotional support.

But depression feeds on itself. He kept comparing himself to his big brother. Logan was so strong and confident. Nolan felt he was a drag factor, holding him back. Logan could go so much further in life if he wasn't tethered to his chronically depressed, suicidal brother. At least that's what Nolan thought.

One day they had a conversation. Logan said that was the wrong way to view it. For one thing, Nolan's depression made them so much closer. If Nolan was more independent, they might take each other for granted. Logan would rather have a depressed brother he was close to than a normal brother who was distant. That was a precious tradeoff.

What's more, the dynamic was paradoxical. Logan was stronger, but he was stronger because he was happy, and he was happy because he had a brother to love, and love him back. So Nolan's weakness was a hidden source of Logan's strength. Logan was happier than Nolan because he had Nolan in his life. They were linked by an unseen lifeline. If Nolan ever killed himself, Logan would begin to die inside.

That was a revelation to Nolan. It never occurred to him. After that, he was still depressed, but no longer as depressed.

Puberty blockers

https://www.christian.org.uk/news/hidden-study-reveals-devastating-effects-of-puberty-blockers/

Catholicism on funerals for suicides

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/about-that-funeral-mass-homily-some-points/

Technology is a beautiful thing (in the right hands)

http://faithtech.com/institute/can-technology-save-lives/

Catholic catch-22

Even though we live in the information age, where there's so much scrutiny, it's striking how the Catholic church was able to get away with so much for so long. Just imagine how much greater the scale of corruption and abuse in past centuries prior to the information age. Imagine what happened behind closed doors at monasteries and Catholic orphanages. And back when the Catholic church had much stronger ties with the civil authorities–the better to conceal wrongdoing. 

Odds are that some victims of abuse committed suicide. Their ordeal was inescapable. No one believed them. They were punished if they told outsiders what was happening. It seems statistically inevitable that victims killed themselves to avoid further torment–or from unbearable depression, shame, false guilt. 

And here's the clincher. They were denied Catholic burial because their mortal remains desecrated the hallowed ground of a Catholic graveyard. 

So the very people who made their lives unendurable, who pushed them over the edge, to commit suicide, were the same people who denied them burial in "consecrated" ground because they died in a state of mortal sin. Can you imagine a more diabolical dilemma? Reminds me of some definitions of catch-22:

a situation in which there are only two possibilities, and you cannot do either because each depends on having done the other first.

an impossible situation where you are prevented from doing one thing until you have done another thing that you cannot do until you have done the first thing.

a difficult situation in which the solution to a problem is impossible because it is also the cause of the problem.

Suicide in Scripture

1. Christian arguments against suicide typically cite biblical examples of suicide which allegedly cast suicide in a baleful light. Six or seven examples are given:

i) Abimelech (Jdg 9:52-54

ii) Samson (Jdg 16:28-31)

iii) Saul (1 Sam 31:3-5)

iv) Saul's armor-bearer (1 Sam 31:4-6; 1 Chron 10:4)

v) Ahithophel (2 Sam 17:23)

vi) Zimri (1 Kgs 16:18-19)

vii) Judas (Mt 27:3-5)

2. There's disagreement on whether the death of Samson counts as suicide. On the one hand, people who think suicide is wrong, and think Samson did the wrong thing, classify his death as suicide. On the other hand, people who think think suicide is wrong, but think Samson did the right thing, don't classify his death as suicide. So there's some circularity in how they categorize his action. 

3. Strictly speaking, the death of Abimelech is assisted suicide. That's what Saul requested, but his armor-bearer refused. 

In at least four of the seven cases (Saul, Saul's armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri), the man took his own life to avoid falling into enemy hands. And there may be two reasons to avoid that fate:

i) Death by torture

ii) Ignominy 

4. In the case of Abimelech, it was to avoid ignominy–although he may have feared being captured alive. Even if he had a mortal wound, he might linger, and be further humiliated or tortured. 

5. Samson may have had more than one motive:

i) Seize the opportunity to perform a decapitation strike.

ii) Redeem his ignoble condition through a noble death. 

6. Who knows what exactly was going on in the mind of Judas. 

7. One problem with appealing to these examples is the fallacy of transferring the character of the agent to the character of the deed. But the fact that evil men sometimes commit suicide doesn't entail that suicide is evil–anymore than the fact that men sometimes commit murder entails that all homicide is murder. 

8. These passages don't moralize about suicide per se. And there are readers who wouldn't conclude from reviewing these passages that suicide is wrong. There are warrior cultures and honor/shame cultures where, under some circumstances, suicide is regarded as a dutiful deed. For instance: 

The second selection is Josephus’ account of the siege of the fortress of Masada. After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the fortress—built in a seemingly impregnable position at the top of a massive rock promontory on the western shore of the Dead Sea—became one of the last outposts for the Jewish nationalists known as the Zealots. On May 2, 73, during a major offensive by the Roman army, 960 Zealot revolutionaries under the command of Eleazar chose to commit mass suicide rather than to yield to the Roman attack. Eleazar’s arguments favoring suicide are counterparts to those Josephus had used against it: voluntary death gives liberty to the soul; it preserves honor and protects the pride of the Jewish nation; it spares one’s family and oneself from slavery and torture if captured. Incited by Eleazar, each husband killed his wife and children and was then killed by the next man in line; the last man willingly killed himself. Only two women and five children, hiding in the underground aqueducts, survived to tell the tale.

https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/josephus/

A man call Razis, a member of the Jerusalem senate, was denounced to Nicanor.  He was a patriot and very highly spoken of, one who for his loyalty was known as Father of the Jews.  In the early days of the revolt he had stood trial for practicing the Jewish religion, and with no hesitation had risked life and limb for that cause.  Nicanor, wishing to demonstrate his hostility towards the Jews, sent more than five hundred soldiers to arrest Razis; he reckoned that this would be a severe blow to the Jews.  The tower of his house was on the point of being captured by this mob of soldiers, the outer gate was being forced, and there were calls for fire to burn down the inner doors, when Razis, beset on every side, turned his sword on himself; he preferred to die nobly rather than fall into the hands of evil men and be subjected to gross humiliation (II Maccabees 14:37).

Shinju—meaning “sincerity of heart”—refers to double or multiple suicides, whether pairs of lovers, mothers and children, or entire families. It is sometimes called “companionate” or “companionship” suicide. 

https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/chikamatsu-monzaemon/

Bushido, “the Way of the Warrior,” Japan’s traditional code of military culture and chivalry...the code of Bushido had taken honor as central and had held that to protect it, the samurai warrior was, among other things, to be prepared to commit suicide. Wounded or defeated warriors were expected to kill themselves; to be taken alive as a prisoner was a great dishonor. The late medieval epic Taiheiki recounts 68 separate occasions of warrior suicide involving a total of 2,140 men.

Seppuku is distinct from the other principal form of suicide recognized in traditional Japanese culture, shinju, or “love suicide” [q.v., under Chikamatsu]. Performed as an act of military honor…seppuku has sometimes been compared to the Roman custom in which a defeated general falls on his sword, though apparently more strongly expected and frequently practiced. One modern commentator notes that “the samurai tradition of suicide to save one’s honour may have lost Japan many fine generals who would otherwise have lived to fight another day.” 

https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/daidoji-yuzan/

The Indians in general are, besides, so sensitive, that, for a little too bitter a reproach, it is not unusual to see them poison themselves with water hemlock and do away with themselves.

https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/region/americas/iroquois5/

The Gaspesians, however, are so sensitive to affronts which are offered them that they sometimes abandon themselves to despair, and even make attempts on their own lives, in the belief that the insult which has been done them tarnishes the honour and the reputation which they have acquired, whether in war or in hunting.

https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/region/americas/micmac2/

Njal’s Saga, or the “Story of Burnt Njal” (probably written between 1275–1290), the longest and most highly acclaimed of the Norse sagas, is the story of two warring families. In the selection presented here, a complex plot reaches its climax as Njal, a wise and peace-loving father, when he learns that he and his family are surrounded and outmanned by their enemies, allows himself, together with his wife, sons, and a grandson, to die violent deaths by fire rather than suffer a continued existence in shame.

https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/norse-sagas/

Other examples include Seneca and Mencius. Depending on your cultural background, having irredeemably disgraced himself, Judas did the right thing. Likewise, for a soldier to let himself be captured brings dishonor on himself and those he represents. The way to avoid that shameful fate is to die an honorable death by taking his own life. 

From the standpoint of Christian ethics, killing yourself to preserve your reputation is an illegitimate justification. You may have a Christian duty to endure unjust stigma. Indeed, in Scripture, there's an inversion of values where an undignified death by worldly standards is a dignified death by godly standards. (However, it doesn't follow that there's an obligation to endure vivisection.) 

Yet that underscores my point. Taken by themselves, biblical examples of suicide don't indicate the moral status of suicide in general. Rather, they must be assessed in light of a theological reference frame we bring to those passage. But in that event the appeal is circular if said passages are used to create a theological reference frame which is, in turn, used to evaluate the same passages.  

Revenge suicide

People commit suicide for different reasons. In some cases, revenge is the motive. A way of getting back at people by making them feel guilty. 

People commit apostasy for different reasons. In some cases, apostasy is the theological (or atheistic) equivalent of revenge suicide. The apostate is a mad a God. Mad at Christians. Mad at the church. Disillusioned. 

Apostasy is symbolic way of getting back at God. A real way of getting back at Christians and the church. Notice how much apostasy is often driven by anger.

BTW, I don't necessarily mean that as a putdown. In the pages of Scripture, you have psalmists and prophets who are mad at God, or disappointed. 

But apostasy and revenge suicide are often psychologically equivalent. They just take different objects. 

Proleptic forgiveness

i) Is suicide ipso facto damnable? One argument for that contention is that if suicide is forgivable, then that implies postmortem forgiveness. To be forgiven, God must forgive him after the fact. After he died. 

However, that inference only follows if you think God is a timebound agent who must wait until after a Christian commits suicide to forgive him. But if God knows the future, then God can forgive some sins before they were committed. Proleptic forgiveness. 

ii) There's also the general issue of whether a born-again Christian can lose his salvation. If salvation is inamissable, then suicide isn't ipso facto damnable. 

Suicide and burial

Here's another example of how the One True Church® has reversed itself on a fundamental issue:

A canonical sign of this pastoral approach is the universal understanding of 1983 CIC 1184 § 3 to allow ecclesiastical funerals to be accorded those committing suicide, a change from 1917 CIC 1240 § 1, n. 3, that expressly prohibited such funerals (although the older law was applied more leniently than it read). 

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/canonical-consequences-for-suicide/

The crisis of American loneliness

https://arcdigital.media/the-crisis-of-american-loneliness-5ebca3e9a160

Self-murder

Let's combine two traditional arguments:

i) Premeditated unjustifiable homicide is murder

ii) Murder ought to be a capital offense

i) Suicide is premeditated unjustifiable self-homicide

ii) Suicide is self-murder

iii) Suicide ought to be a capital offense

The penalty for attempted suicide or conspiracy to commit suicide should be execution. People who try to kill themselves deserve to be killed.

That's a reductio ad absurdum for a traditional argument against suicide. A dilemma. 

The appeal of the self-murder argument is that it's simple. But sometimes simple arguments are simplistic.

The "self-murder" objection should be retired. There are better arguments against suicide. 

Catholic suicide

Here's the traditional Catholic position on suicide:

Q. 1274. What sin is it to destroy one's own life, or commit suicide, as this act is called?

A. It is a mortal sin to destroy one's own life or commit suicide, as this act is called, and persons who willfully and knowingly commit such an act die in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of Christian burial. 

http://www.baltimore-catechism.com/lesson33.htm

Unsurprisingly, post-Vatican II theology smudges the original clarity:

2282 Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm

But there are tensions in the current position. Does the CCC mean that suicide is never a mortal sin? Or does it mean that in some cases, there are extenuating circumstances that mitigate what would otherwise be a mortal sin? 

If suicide is a mortal sin, and by that very act, the suicide dies in a state of mortal sin, then it's too late for him to confess to a priest and receive absolution. By that logic, suicide is a damnable sin. There's is no second chance between the suicide ran out the clock. That's the traditional logic of the Baltimore catechism. 

Suicide is unforgivable if you can't receive forgiveness direct from God. If you can only be forgiven by a priest, then suicide uniquely eliminates that opportunity. 

But if forgiveness needn't be mediated by a priest, then it's not unforgivable on those grounds. So does the CCC mean sinners, or Christians in particular, can receive direct divine forgiveness? But in that event, the sacrament of penance is superfluous. 

This is the studied fuzziness we find in contemporary Catholic theology, even at the highest levels. 

The traditional position presumes that you need to maintain a running checklist of sins. When you go to confession, you cross out the sins for that week, then begin compiling a new list. 

No doubt Christians should be contrite and confess their sins (to God). But the nature of sin is to be morally numbing to some degree, so that we don't remember or are even aware of all our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds.