MODERN SUICIDE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] your interesting and informative article on this subject you refer to a letter I wrote to The Times in which I urged that the law should be altered by removing the absurdity of suicide being a crime and the inhumanity of treating the unfortunate who has tried to end his days and failed as a criminal. What has surprised me is the number of letters I have received expressing concurrence. None has indicated opposition.
You wrote that it is significant that where condemnation of suicide is strongest, the number of suicides is lowest. Yet, as you again point out, the law is not a deterrent. Suicide in the eyes of the Church is a sin ; so is adultery, which is not a crime. I believe only two other countries, outside the British Empire, treat suicide as a crime.
The legal consequences arc unfortunate. A man on his marriage insures his life for the protection of his wife and children. Years afterwards under the stress of circumstances he kills himself. If a jury finds that he was temporarily insane (a vague enough category) the family get the provision intended for them. If he is found to have killed himself while not temporarily insane, they lose that provision. It is good law but, as it seems to me, bad sense. The trouble is that in no way can this result be avoided. No matter how clearly the policy declares that it covers the risk of suicide, " Public Policy " makes it unenforceable.
A gift made shortly before and in contemplation of death is effectual as a donatio mortis causa, but when death by suicide is contemplated the gift is invalid. It would be giving effect to . the gift by a crime. (In re Adman, 1925, Ch. 553.) What happens to the policy when it has been charged as security for a loan ? The Lords have recently expressed the opinion that, though the family of the suicide cannot get any benefit from the policy-money, the lender may. This opinion was however obiter. If it is against public policy to insure against a crime, is it not vitiated entirely ? In any case why should the third-party lenders be treated more liberally than the dependants ? The root of the evil is the anachronism of calling suicide a crime. Many a legal complication folloivs from it.
" The simple man's horror of suicide " is one thing and, as you point out, punishment another. To your suggestive analysis of the cause of this horror I would add this, that the deliberate choice of any individual to leave this world in which we remain is something of an affront to us. That is a reason why the family generally prefer a verdict of temporary insanity.
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