Suicide has always been and always should be something of a taboo. Sometimes this rule is honoured in the breach so to speak. People like Welsh academic , who took her own life rather than living with progressive MS tried to affirm, in her last blog entry, that her death was not suicide. Commentator, has written often about the incongruity and downright double standards in the media in relation to suicide.

Frances MedleyWesley Smith

There have been examples here in Australia. One that springs to mind is the reporting on the death of Beverley Broadbent where her death was described as a 'rational' suicide. There have been any number of cases where the media had access to the person who planned suicide and the stories invariably seem to celebrate their lives and, if not endorsing their suicide decision, at least portraying something of an a-moral or non-moral position.

While many worthy initiatives in most western nations work tirelessly on suicide prevention, it seems to me that the celebratory media reporting that sometimes even creates a quasi-endorsement of the act of suicide is doing far more harm than good.

Wesley Smith comments on his blog about a recent case in the UK:

Our Pro Suicide Culture: Extolling Joint Suicides

This is the pro suicide culture we are becoming. A UK married couple committed joint suicide to the support of their son and the coroner. From the Daily Mail story:

The son of a couple who died after making a suicide pact kissed them both goodbye and gave them his blessing. Tai Altman said he knew his parents Raphael, 69, and Tamar, 72, who had been married for 46 years, were going to kill themselves…

They were both supporters of Dignity in Dying, and had marked October 3, 2013 in their diary

with the single word - 'depart'.

Raphael was dying of cancer. Tamar killed herself, in part, because she didn't want to move:

Tai Altman said the family spent two days saying goodbye, before he gave his parents - who were both in poor health - his blessing.

'I told her she could move here and be with us and her grandchildren but she was not without her own physical ailments. She wasn't about to relocate 500 miles. I didn't argue about it.'

Of course not.

And get this from the coroner!

Assistant coroner Peter Clark said the couple had made a careful decision to end their lives in a 'dignified' way. Recording verdicts of suicide, he said: 'It is clear they intended to die together as they lived together.'

You either get why this is so very wrong, or you don't. I am out of words.