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Suicide or self sacrifice?
Topic Started: Monday, 23. April 2007, 20:25 (395 Views)
Jamie

As this is a miscellany I thought I'd ask a question which occurred to me about a novel I was reading this week.

Set in the future during a war, one of the fictioonal resistance movement, knowing she has been betrayed, hangs herself, rather than be tortured in her turn into betraying her colleagues.

So - is this committing suicide, or laying down one's life for a friend?????
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Rose of York
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Jamie
Apr 23 2007, 08:25 PM
As this is a miscellany I thought I'd ask a question which occurred to me about a novel I was reading this week.

Jamie's question was in Miscellany of Catholic Chatter. I think it is a good point for a discussion.
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sumermamma

jamie,
It was suicide. Self sacrifice would be dying for someone like Jesus and Fr. Kolbe did. She took the noose to avoid something.
sm
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Clare
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Jamie
Apr 23 2007, 08:25 PM
As this is a miscellany I thought I'd ask a question which occurred to me about a novel I was reading this week.

Set in the future during a war, one of the fictioonal resistance movement, knowing she has been betrayed, hangs herself, rather than be tortured in her turn into betraying her colleagues.

So - is this committing suicide, or laying down one's life for a friend?????

Suicide, I'd say.

She wasn't laying down her life for a friend, but to avoid being tortured!

That's not to say I wouldn't do the same in her shoes, since torture doesn't appeal to me, but I certainly wouldn't build it up into something heroic and selfless!

Clare.
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Eve
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Clare
Apr 23 2007, 08:47 PM
She wasn't laying down her life for a friend, but to avoid being tortured!
Clare.

sumermamma
Apr 23 2007, 08:47 PM
jamie,
It was suicide. Self sacrifice would be dying for someone like Jesus and  Fr. Kolbe did. She took the noose to avoid something.
sm

Jamie
Apr 23 2007, 08:25 PM
hangs herself, rather than be tortured in her turn into betraying her colleagues.


Or did she do it for her colleagues?
Howdy Folks. Has anybody seen my husband lately?
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Clare
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Eve
Apr 23 2007, 09:00 PM
sumermamma
Apr 23 2007, 08:47 PM
jamie,
It was suicide. Self sacrifice would be dying for someone like Jesus and  Fr. Kolbe did. She took the noose to avoid something.
sm

Jamie
Apr 23 2007, 08:25 PM
hangs herself, rather than be tortured in her turn into betraying her colleagues.


Or did she do it for her colleagues?

Well, sort of, in a sense. If it were a case that she knew she'd betray her friends under torture, her primary concern was to avoid betraying her friends rather than avoid the torture. I can see that argument.

But it's not permissible to do evil that good may come of it. And deliberately killing oneself is an evil act, objectively.

Clare.
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Rose of York
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Clare
Apr 23 2007, 09:06 PM
But it's not permissible to do evil that good may come of it. And deliberately killing oneself is an evil act, objectively.

Clare.

A woman in a resistance movement would know that if she betrayed her friends, they in turn might give in under torture and betray their country, by revealing secret information. Hundreds of thousands could die. Tyrannical dictators could take control.

During World War II, and since, many have voluntarilly carried out specialised military duties knowing the chance of survival is less than one in four. They gave their tomorrow for our today.

Are we to say they objectively sinned by taking the chance? No way. Sometimes, choices are difficult. Needs must.
Keep the Faith!

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Clare
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Rose of York
Apr 23 2007, 09:14 PM
Clare
Apr 23 2007, 09:06 PM
But it's not permissible to do evil that good may come of it. And deliberately killing oneself is an evil act, objectively.

Clare.

A woman in a resistance movement would know that if she betrayed her friends, they in turn might give in under torture and betray their country, by revealing secret information. Hundreds of thousands could die. Tyrannical dictators could take control.

During World War II, and since, many have voluntarilly carried out specialised military duties knowing the chance of survival is less than one in four. They gave their tomorrow for our today.

Are we to say they objectively sinned by taking the chance? No way. Sometimes, choices are difficult. Needs must.

Well, as I understand it, based on the principle that one shouldn't do evil that good may come of it, I've heard that one shouldn't even tell a lie even if it would save the world!

Ideally!

Of course God would understand. But it would still be wrong, objectively.

I'd do it, of course. But that wouldn't make it right!

Clare.
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Michael

i can't believe that you think she would have commited an evil act, after she would have betrayed her friends through pain and torture she would have been murdered anyway, so i say if she plucked up the courage to kill herself to save others then she is both brave and noble,
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Clare
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Michael
Apr 24 2007, 02:45 AM
i can't believe that you think she would have commited an evil act, after she would have betrayed her friends through pain and torture she would have been murdered anyway, so i say if she plucked up the courage to kill herself to save others then she is both brave and noble,

She did commit an evil act. Suicide is an evil act.

The end does not justify the means. That is the other way of saying that it is not permissible to do evil that good may come of it.

You are saying that the end (saving her friends) justified the means (killing herself). But that is contrary to Church teaching.

Clare.

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Michael

it's not suicide she was killed in action, this is not the same kind of thing as suicide in civvie street, countless lives hung in the balance when an operative was captured, without this kind of sacrifice you could very well be living your life under the jackboot,
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Clare
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Michael
Apr 24 2007, 10:14 AM
it's not suicide she was killed in action, this is not the same kind of thing as suicide in civvie street, countless lives hung in the balance when an operative was captured, without this kind of sacrifice you could very well be living your life under the jackboot,

She hanged herself. That's suicide.

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Jamie

I have gone round and round in my head with this one....and motive must come into it.

The resistance member doesn't WANT to kill herself but she knows that under torture she is inevitably going to implicate a much wider network and cause many other deaths.....so in that sense it can be argued she is indeed 'laying down her life to save a friend'.....

Under torture I'd tell you anything you wanted to know in exchange for a cigarette - and I don't smoke.......
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Rose of York
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Church teaching is not just a quick reference or recipe book.

There have been soldiers who deliberately lay down on hand grenades to save their comrades. That was suicide. I salute their courage and generosity.
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Jamie

That is a good example Rose - in the context of the story the young woman is indeed "on active service" with the underground, against a wholly unjust and repressive regime, and her death is enitrely "coerced" - and not in any sense, a free choice......
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