State-assisted suicide is the use of government to commit suicide. It is usually performed by committing a capital crime and receiving a capital punishment. State-assisted suicide was a popular method in Medieval and Enlightenment Era Scandinavia, where religion forbade suicide and suicidees were prohibited from religious burial. The usual method was to kill an infant - infanticide was a capital crime; and infants, once baptized, were considered to be pure and sinless and therefore certain to receive salvation. The death penalty, usually by beheading, gave the condemned a chance to atone his or her sins before death. This was also common in the German states of the same period; several states outlawed the practice, but to no avail.