Definition of Suicide

Our Suicide Main Article provides a comprehensive look at the who, what, when and how of Suicide

Suicide: The act of causing ones own death. Suicide may be positive or negative and it may be direct or indirect. Suicide is a positive act when one takes ones own life.

Suicide is a negative act when one does not do what is necessary to escape death such as leaving a burning building.

Suicide is direct when one has the intention of causing ones own death, whether as an end to be attained, or as a means to another end, as when a man kills himself to escape condemnation, disgrace, ruin, etc.

Suicide is indirect (and not usually called suicide) when one does not desire it as an end or a means, but when one nevertheless commits an act which courts death, as in tending someone with SARS knowing that they may well succumb to the same illness.