While doing my daily internet searching, I came across this article explaining the motivation behind assisting others with suicide. This article doesn't say there is an open doorway now for assisted suicides, but it does say there may be a new framework as to how lawyers will choose who should be prosecuted and who shouldn't.
"It made clear that someone acting out of compassion, to help a terminally ill patient with a "clear, settled and informed wish to die" is unlikely to face the courts. "
"But persuading or pressuring the victim to kill themselves, or benefiting from their death, would encourage prosecution. "
I found this extremely interesting, because as a student in this motivation class, I couldn't help but think what if there wasn't an extrinsic motivation, but an intrinsic one? If someone helps another committ suicide and is not receiving any money from their will etc they may not be prosecuted, but what if someone just wishes for them to die because of dislike or revenge? You know that, NOT in most cases, there is the potential for this type of situation to come along.
Also, by allowing the person more choices, does that persuade them in a different direction than what they were originally thinking? When giving someone autonomy, they can second guess initial decisions-- An example-- Person A was diagnosed with cancer and was given X amount of time to live. Person A was motivated to stay alive as long as possible to try and beat the odds. Person A was then given to option to be given a drug that woud ultimately kill them within an hour. By giving someone the option alone is a form of persuasion . INow there is a decision to be made, and dont you think the drug option would be in the back of their heads on a 'bad' day?
I also understand the other side of this extremely controversal topic-- if someone is an immense amount of pain/on their death bed and the family no longer wants to have them suffering so they collaborately (with the patient if applicable) decide what would be best.
I think deciding of whether or not to prosecute someone is a very complicated issues-- I believe there are more factors involved than just whether or not the person assisting is receiving some kind of benefits from the death.
I hope no one takes offense to this article, I just thought it was extremely interesting-- both sides shown here. I hope you guys thought it was as interesting as I did--
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