French writer Emile Durkheim noticed a century ago that such intensely regulated environments as religious sects and military bases had higher suicide rates. Which makes you wonder what he would say about a society that decides to regulate suicide--that actually allows you to apply for it like a driver's license. Would that society experience a spate of "contagious" suicides, as Durkheim might theorize today?
We will find out. Soon it will be possible in the Netherlands for doctors to inject lethal drugs into chronically ill people who want to die. No other nation has formally legalized euthanasia. And though mercy killings...
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