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The argument that has sent people into a confusion is whether or not people who are suffering from terminal or excruciatingly painful illnesses have the right to take their own lives with the help of physician-assisted suicide. Proponents contend that what one d ....

Middle of Essay
.... prohibitions of killing which are better interpreted as forbidding the unlawful killing of others.Besides, the suicides that do occur in the Bible-Samson,Saul and Judas among others-are not described in a disapproving manner. Both Jewish and Christian disapproval of suicide dates from the fourth century AD, late in the development of both religons, and does not derive directly from scripture. Ironically, the Christian Church, encouraged by the arguments of St.Augustine, adopted a strict prohibition against suicide precisely because it had become so popular among Christians. A vogue of suffering,and even collective suicide ,had by then begun to thre ....