Biologist Jerry Coyne discusses mental illness and assisted suicide

Jerry Coyne, Ph.D., is an American biologist recognized for his work on speciation, ecology, evolutionary genetics, and his commentary on intelligent design.  He is best known to the general public for his book “Why Evolution Is True.”  He publishes a blog using the same name, abbreviated WEIT.  He is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution.

I met Coyne in 2009, when he was traveling around promoting his book and appeared at the campus of Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.  Friends in the Philosophy Department invited me to a small group discussion with him.  He writes frequently about evolution and other biology topics on his blog, but his blog deals more with other topics of social, religious, and political interest. He is a leading light in the freethought community and often criticizes college students for trying to shut down speakers with whom they disagree.  

Coyne wrote me that he applauds FEN’s mission.  Recently, he published a post on his blog titled “Thought for the day: On mental illness and assisted suicide,” discussing the topic just after the suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.  In the post, he includes a video of Adam Maier-Clayton, a former frequent contributor to FEN’s Facebook page, where his death in April 2017 was announced with both sadness and understanding.  Coyne’s blog post begins–

The suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain have made me realize again how strongly the media and society regard every suicide as in some sense a failure: a failure of the deceased to get help, a failure of the caregivers to give proper help, or a failure of friends and family to notice a problem.  In general, I agree—but not always. Certainly those who have recognized suicidal tendencies, or who have been severely depressed, should be made aware of the opportunities for help, and everything should be done to provide that help.

But this doesn’t always work. Despite drugs, therapy, and so on, some people in tremendous mental distress are not improved, and simply want to end their pain by ending their lives. I don’t think that in every case we should say “they shouldn’t kill themselves.” The pain of severe depression can be so strong, and so persistent, that the sufferer feels it’s better to end the pain than to live with an incurable mental illness. Is this really so different from a terminal cancer patient in unbearable physical pain who wants the pain to stop? I don’t see how—not if every attempt to fix things has failed. After all, unbearable physical pain causes unbearable mental pain.

The rest of the post can be read at the WEIT blog here.