We must find the courage to say that suicide is a sin

Our non-judgmental attitude leaves us powerless in the face of suicide epidemics, says Ed West
With 17 teenagers dead in Bridgend, the subject of suicide has never been more prominent in the media than it is now. And naturally, this being Britain, the press has been blamed for making things worse.
Bridgend MP Madeleine Moon has been especially vocal in criticising newspapers for their portrayal of her constituency as a "death town". "Absolutely everything I've seen from the description of Bridgend as a 'death town', 'suicide town', talking about suicide 'cults' is absolutely disgraceful," she said last month, "and has actually created additional risk for young people."
Certainly there is no denying that the media influences suicide rates. Back in the 1970s academic David Phillips coined the phrase "the Werther Effect" to describe the importance of copycat suicides. The name was taken from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, which after its publication in 1774 was blamed for up to 2,000 young men shooting themselves in the manner of the tragic hero.
Studying American suicide rates between 1947 and 1968, Phillips found that in the two months following a front-page suicide story. an average of 58 more people killed themselves (there was also a big increase in car crashes, a common method
of disguised suicide). A ITS academic journal in 2002 suggested that these "suicide clusters" accounted for up to five per cent of teenage suicides, the young being most vulnerable to peer pressure in this area (as in all areas). But until the Bridgend tragedies most people only knew about this phenomenon from reading Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book The Tipping Point. which suggested that suicides are contagious, like a disease.
This is obvious to anyone who remembers the stifling conformity of their own teenage years; journalists are aware of it, and newspapers have long had a code of conduct ensuring they don't glamourise or romanticise self-destruction, or give practical information about how to carry it out.
But the internet has made this code almost obsolete. Teenagers spend far more time on the web than reading newspapers (a source of great concern to editors) and online they can not only find sites that romanticise suicide but actively encourage it. In August last year a Shropshire man, Kevin Whitrick, committed suicide while using a live webcam. One horrified witness called the police, but others egged him on (although some claimed they thought it a joke). Pro-suicide chatrooms have already been linked to 27 British deaths this century.
A group called Papyrus is trying to update the 1961 Suicide Act to make it specifically illegal to encourage suicide on the net. Spokeswoman Rosemary Vaux pointed out: "In the United Kingdom the law specifically bans grooming a child for sex, but it's not illegal to groom a child for death."
This might help, but such a law alone will not stop teen suicides (which are, it has to be pointed out. relatively low in Britain compared to most of Europe). Suicide sites might be a horrific, if predictable, subculture belonging to the dark side of the web, but on a wider level these deaths represent a failure of the libertarian. permissive society and its philosophy that anyone is entitled to do whatever they like with their own bodies.
The basis of this covenant of apathy is that, as long as we obey the laws and pay our taxes, what we do with ourselves is our own business. Our bodies are our own, and if we want to get pregnant or overdose on drugs, that is our business. Good in theory, except that all the research by David Phillips and co points to the conclusion that suicide is in fact a form of death-groonling in itself.
Another academic. Robert Cialdini, popularised the concept of "social proof ', which has mostly been used in the field of marketing, but applies to any human behaviour. Whatever the message from well-meaning members of society and loved ones, teenagers will always imitate those they like and respect. If their friend buys a certain drink, they will; if he wears one brand of jeans, they will; if he jumps off a cliff, then, despite what teachers say, they will consider it.
One man's drug addiction has a shattering knock-on effect in the community, not just in the crime he commits or the devastating misery of his family, but by the likelihood that it will influence another.
Likewise with suicide. Contrary to what has always been thought. suicide is not always linked to mental illness or depression (while most depressives contemplate suicide, not all suicides are depressives). For some, it is a moment of madness, a short-term temptation. As Papyrus's spokeswoman said: "The danger is people can do something impulsive. Impulsive suicidal people don't realise they are not coming back." Suicide is not necessarily the inevitable conclusion to a miserable life; often suicidal people can be made to see sense, and groups like Samaritans do a heroic job of saving lives.
But this is hampered when those left behind get a mixed message. Some critics have accused memorial websites, where loved ones put up pictures and messages for the dead, of romanticising death. Forget about the net for one moment many of the real places where these young people have hanged themselves have become floral shrines.
No one can blame family and friends for mourning, but for everyone else fighting the cult of suicide without judgment is like fighting a forest fire with buckets. If we really wanted to deter suicide we would condemn it for what it is: a sinful act and a crime. No one not one person has said that what these teenagers have done is seriously wrong.
Jews, Christians and Muslims have always condemned this act, and damned the suicidal to hell (the seventh circle in Dante's Divine Comedy). Until the 20th century successful suicides were denied holy burial, and unsuccessful ones went to jail. Grieving Victorian families would make a great deal of effort to get doctors to declare their sons or daughters insane so that they would not be condemned in the eyes of the Church and the community.
We've always understood that there are those who attempt suicide because they are of unsound mind. But for those who commit suicide on impulse, it is a terrible. evil thing to do; we shouldn't glamorise or romanticise what they do, but neither should we excuse them. For as long as we withhold judgment on any act of self-destruction we'll be condemned to stand around wondering why the fire continues to spread.