{"id":51419,"date":"2015-09-03T02:18:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T02:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/npr_fasting_to_the_death_is_it_a_religious_rite_or_suicide\/"},"modified":"2015-09-03T02:18:26","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T02:18:26","slug":"npr_fasting_to_the_death_is_it_a_religious_rite_or_suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=51419","title":{"rendered":"(NPR) Fasting To The Death: Is It A Religious Rite Or Suicide?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A person who is very old or very ill decides to stop eating in order to die.<\/p>\n<p>To members of the ancient and tiny faith of Jainism in India, that&#8217;s a tradition called santhara or sallekhana (literally thinning out).<\/p>\n<p>India&#8217;s Supreme Court is considering whether to ban the practice as a form of suicide, which is punishable under law. The court is now reviewing the end-of-life ritual.<\/p>\n<p>Some form of fasting is deeply rooted in many religions: Christians practice Lent. Muslims have Ramadan. The Jewish tradition is to fast on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The Hindu calendar is rich with days of forsaking food.<\/p>\n<p>But right now the attention is on the custom of the Jains&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2015\/4-september\/news\/uk\/christine-hardman-named-as-c-of-es-next-woman-bishop\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A person who is very old or very ill decides to stop eating in order to die. To members of the ancient and tiny faith of Jainism in India, that&#8217;s a tradition called santhara or sallekhana (literally thinning out). India&#8217;s<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=51419\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,39,50,201,438,168,481,114,96,184,108,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life-church-life","category-culture-watch","category-international-news-commentary","category-asia","category-death-burial-funerals","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-india","category-law-legal-issues","category-life-ethics","category-parish-ministry","category-religion-culture","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}