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Assisted suicide laws vary by country, with some explicitly making it legal or illegal, while others leave it to other statutes. In some countries, there are no clear laws, but those who assist in suicide can still be charged with a crime. Only a few countries, including Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands, have passed laws making assisted suicide legal. In the United States, some states have passed laws legalizing assisted suicide, while others criminalize it.
There are different types of assisted suicide laws, and in general, they explicitly make assisted suicide legal or illegal, or they don’t address the issue and leave it to the purview of other statutes. For example, some countries or states within a country specifically state that assisted suicide is illegal and establish penalties for those convicted of such crimes. In some countries and parts of countries, assisted suicide is clearly stated as legal under certain parameters, and these are clearly outlined by the laws of those areas. Other countries do not have clear assisted suicide laws and, in those regions, there are typically court cases that set a precedent for prosecution or acceptance of assisted suicide.
Assisted suicide is the practice in which a person who wishes to die, often from long-term illness or prolonged suffering, is assisted by a doctor or friend in ending their life. As can be expected, assisted suicide laws are typically quite complex and are often the subject of heated debate and controversy for both citizens of a country and those outside the country. Most countries have laws explicitly outlining assisted suicide as illegal or past cases where assisted suicide cases have been prosecuted under other statutes.
In many European countries, for example, there are no laws on assisted suicide that clearly make the act illegal, however, those who might be assisting others in committing suicide could still be charged with a crime. Depending on the country, someone could be accused of being an accessory to manslaughter or murder, or accused of failing to help someone who was in danger. While these are often minor offenses and may not lead to jail time, they still make the practice of assisted suicide illegal. These laws can, of course, change at any time, but as of 2010, only a few countries, including Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, had passed assisted suicide laws that made the act legal.
In these countries, however, assisted suicide laws often state that only a physician can do the act or require that the dying person write a letter of intent to clear the name of the assister. There are a few states in the United States that have passed assisted suicide laws making it legal, including Oregon and Washington. In some other states, there have also been court cases where a person charged with assisted suicide as a felony was acquitted of the charges even though she committed the act, effectively setting a precedent for decriminalizing the act. Most U.S. states, however, have assisted suicide laws that either explicitly designate the act as a felony or criminalize assisted suicide under the common law.
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