Suicide is always a public health issue

Tessa Jane Holzman and Julian Savulescu note that suicide prevention is currently considered to be a matter of public health, with the policy goal of preventing all deaths by suicide. Holzman and Savulescu argue that suicide is not always an irrational or inappropriate choice, and so, suicide prevention policies should aim to prevent bad deaths, rather than preventing all deaths. In this response, I argue that there are important continuities between suicide prevention and other issues which are considered matters of public health. I also argue that Holzman and Savulescu’s proposal that suicide prevention policies should only aim to prevent bad deaths would profoundly change and undermine the values expressed by suicide prevention policies and the programmes they support.