Suicide

Sati, a Hindu funeral practice where the widow commits suicide by immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre, is still prevalent in many parts of India, but goes unreported.

Suicide is NEVER the answer, getting help is the answer. If you are suicidal, have attempted suicide, or are a suicide survivor, you will find help, hope, comfort, understanding, support, love, and extensive resources at suicide.org.

In America almost 30,000 people commit suicide every year, and 70% of those people give warning signs before taking their own life. Stop A Suicide Today! can teach you how to recognize the warning signs of suicide in family, friends, co-workers, and patients, and how to respond as you would do with any medical emergency. - stopasuicide.org

Befrienders Worldwide - befrienders.org
Befrienders centers work to reduce suicide worldwide with 31,000 volunteers in almost 40 countries.

According to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, each year approximately one million people die from suicide, which represents a global mortality rate of 16 people per 100,000 or one death every 40 seconds. By 2020, it is predicted that the rate of death will increase to one every 20 seconds.

In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. Suicide is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 (male and female). Suicide attempts are up to 20 times more frequent than successful suicides.

Mental health disorders, particularly depression and substance abuse, are associated with more than 90% of all cases of suicide.

Maithri - maithrikochi.org
Maithri is a voluntary organisation working to provide confidential emotional support to distressed persons, who may be in danger of taking their own lives. Maithri's primary mission is to reduce deaths due to suicide in society. Services are available free of cost to any person who is undergoing emotional pain, whether suicidal or not.
More than one lakh persons (1,27,151) in India lost their lives by committing suicide during the year 2009. This indicates an increase of 1.7% over the previous year's figure (1,25,017). Majority of suicides occur among men and in younger age groups.

Durkheim's Suicide: A Century of Research and Debate (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought) Durkeim's book on suicide, first published in 1897, is widely regarded as a classic text, and is essential reading for any student of Durkheim's thought and sociological method. The chapters cover such issues as the use of statistics, explanation of suicide, anomie and religion and the morality of suicide.

Reducing Your Child's Risk For Depression & Suicide (Parenting Pointers) Depression and suicide among children are growing social concerns. Most of these children will overcome their problems and go on to lead happy lives. Others will attempt suicide. Although the majority of depressed children are not suicidal, most suicidal children are depressed. Suicide results in the death of more children than cancer or heart disease. National statistics cite that about 10,000 boys and girls 18 years of age or younger take their own lives every year.

Why Suicide?: Questions and Answers About Suicide, Suicide Prevention, and Coping with the Suicide of Someone You Know 85 percent of us will have some up-close experience with the suicide of someone we know. And more than 20 percent of us will have a family member die by suicide. Journalist Eric Marcus knows this better than most people. Drawing from his own experience, as well as interviews with people who have been touched by suicide, Eric Marcus cuts through the veil of silence and misunderstanding to bring clarity, reassurance, and comfort to those who so desperately need it.

The European Suicide - A research project at the Department of Sociology, Stockholm University. Suicide mortality is investigated in an all European perspectives. On this site you'll find information on the status of Durkheim's theorie of suicide and Parsons' theory of action systems. - sociology.su.se/research/suicide.html

A Primer on Rational Suicide and Other Forms of Hastened Death 
James L. Werth, Jr., American Psychological Association AIDS Policy Congressional Fellow,
Daniel J. Holdwick, Jr., St. Lawrence University 
An overview of the major mental health issues involved in the debate over rational suicide and other forms of hastened death. Covers the arguments for including counseling psychologists and other mental health professionals in discussions about hastened death. Provides direction for those counseling psychologists who are working with persons who may be rational in their decisions to hasten death.

Physician-Assisted Suicide 
Lois Snyder, JD; Daniel P. Sulmasy, OFM, MD, PhD, for the Ethics and Human Rights Committee, American College of Physicians - American Society of Internal Medicine, 7 August 2001, Volume 135 Issue 3, Pages 209-216
Medical professional codes have long prohibited physician involvement in assisting a patient's suicide. Despite ethical and legal prohibitions, calls for the liberalization of this ban have grown. In addressing such a issue, physicians, policymakers, and society must fully consider the needs of patients, the vulnerability of particular patient groups, issues of trust and professionalism, and the complexities of end-of-life health care. Physician-assisted suicide is prominent among the issues that define our professional norms and codes of ethics. 
The American College of Physicians–American Society of Internal Medicine does not support the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. The routine practice of physician-assisted suicide raises serious ethical and other concerns. Legalization would undermine the patient–physician relationship and the trust necessary to sustain it; alter the medical profession's role in society; and endanger the value our society places on life, especially on the lives of disabled, incompetent, and vulnerable individuals.

Durkheim distinguished between egoistic, anomic, altruistic, and fatalistic suicide, broad classifications that reflect then-prevailing theories of human behavior.

Durkheim viewed egoistic suicide as a consequence of the deterioration of social and familial bonds.

The term 'altruism' was used by Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) to describe a suicide committed for the benefit of others or for the community: this would include self-sacrifice for military objectives in wartime.

The condition of slavery may make an individual feel that the only way to find escape is suicide. This would be fatalistic suicide because the individual considers himself condemned by fate or doomed to be a slave. A fatalistic situation calling for a fatalistic suicide as a solution or escape.

The category of fatalistic suicide was constructed mainly for purposes of symmetry, as contrasted with egoistic suicide, and because it would undercut his central claims about the role of modern urban life as increasing the incidence of suicide, Durkheim could never seriously examine the possibility that social integration could result in suicide.