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No person shall kill another person except in defense, law enforcement, or lawful military combat. The violation of this right, other than its stated exceptions, is the crime of murder.
No person shall harm another person except in defense, law enforcement, or lawful military combat. The violation of this right, other than its stated exceptions, may be called various things such as assault, battery, domestic violence, medical malpractice, or something else depending on the situation.
In the United States Constitution, the Fifth Amendment states “No person all be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”.
Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
If a person’s life is in danger, there is an obligation to help. However, a person’s inaction or failure to help does not itself constitute murder.
If a person is intent on committing suicide, people who know about this have an obligation to help preserve the person’s life by influencing them to seek mental health or medical assistance instead. The person may be temporarily physically restrained to ensure they have the opportunity to recover, if that’s possible. However, a person who is intent on suicide due to unmanageable and uncurable physical pain or inconsolable mental anguish and for whom no further interventions are available, and continues to insist on ending their own life, must be allowed to do so. Forcing someone to stay alive under such conditions of agony, and keeping them restrained to prevent their suicide, also prevents them from deriving any benefit or enjoyment from staying alive. For this reason, after all reasonable and available interventions have been attempted, providing a person with suicide assistance shall be considered as upholding their right to dignity and shall not be considered a violation of their right to life. Legislatures should enact laws to protect people by defining a process by which the community can ascertain that all reasonable and available interventions have been attempted, and that the person continues to suffer from unmanageable and uncurable physical pain or inconsolable mental anguish, and thereby release a provider of suicide assistance from liability.
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