Is it permissible to embark on a hunger strike determined to fast until death, if ones non-violent political action is not successful?
The essential question to be resolved here is whether embarking on a hunger strike is to commit suicide or not. Suicide is defined as “the direct killing of oneself on ones own authority” (Fagothey, Right and Reason, p. 276). Suicide is to be distinguished from indirect killing which is only indirectly voluntary, for death is not intended either as an end or as a means to an end, but is only permitted as an unavoidable consequence. Such is the case of deliberate exposure of ones life to serious danger of death. This is certainly permissible but only on condition that the usual rules of the indirect voluntary or double effect apply, namely that the bad effect of death is quite distinct from the good effect that is desired, that the good effect does not come from the bad effect, and that there is a proportionate reason to justify the bad effect that is permitted as an unavoidable consequence. Thus, it is permitted to place ones life in danger in time of war in order to defend ones countr
