Avoiding Artificiality

Situation A.

A first-year medical student in California whose personal blog is hosted by a large weblog content provider posts explicit directions on facilitating an assisted suicide in the interest of “serving the rights of competent, terminally ill adults.”  Is this legal? Is it ethical? A teenager in another state who is being treated for depression reads the post and succumbs to a fatal, self-administered overdose of drugs, crediting the blogger for “helping her do it right” in her last note to her family.  Who is responsible for the tragedy?  The teenager herself? The medical student? The weblog content provider for allowing the blog content to be posted? The parents for not monitoring their emotionally fragile child’s Internet access closely enough? What, if any, crime has been committed and who can and should be prosecuted?

Suicide is clearly not a matter of black and white, such as many situations under the copyright law. If you torrent a song, you downloaded it illegally and that is wrong. If you provide information on how to properly kill yourself is that wrong? Intuitively I say yes. Then I step back. If I were dying of stage 4 malignant cancer, how much longer would I want to be around? Life seems to be about quality over quantity. If the situation is reversed however, and this information gives a teenage girl the necessary tools to end it all, this information is harmful. Then I step back even further. In my generation, we have complete access to an abundance of information that connects us to the global sphere. People everywhere are on the Internet voicing their opinions on blogs, providing falsehoods on Wikipedia and exercising their rights. With an exponential amount of voices and opinions, you are bound to find the answer to life’s questions that you are looking for. Meaning, this teenager could have just as easily researched a suicide-watch hotline online or a site that gives helpful tips on how to deal with depression.

This is where my argument shifts. The information itself that the teenager used to commit suicide is not inherently evil. It is on the part of the medical student to state explicitly how the information should be used (ex: this webpage is designed for terminally ill adults battling cancer).  It also falls on the parent’s shoulders to regulate how much time their daughter spends on the Internet as well as making a daily human-to-human interaction with her. There are too many situations where young adults feel disconnected and isolated and then look to the web to find artificial relationships. It is also critical that schools begin to address how to use the Internet at a young age. Understanding that not everything you read is true is helpful when you are still absorbing everything you hear and see. On a larger scale, the government needs to regulate what citizens can and cannot put on the web. Too many sites provide false information or justify acts that would be deemed unconstitutional.

So there may not be one right answer to whether this website is a crime under copyright law, but I am arguing that all of these people, institutions, and connections in this teenager’s life played a critical role in her suicide. Last semester, I had a close friend commit suicide and I was confused and heartbroken. But most of all, I was angry. I was angry with myself for not seeing the signs. I was angry with her parents for not allowing her to follow her dreams and forcing her to take certain classes. I was angry with the school for not acting quickly enough when she went missing. However, underneath all this anger was sadness. Over time (and with the help of therapy), I had come to realize that this situation was clearly out of my control. There was nothing I could have done that would have changed her mind. Nevertheless, I had influenced her in some way because she was apart of my life. Every day gets easier. I remember the good times and integrate all that she has taught me into my daily life. I make a conscious effort to acknowledge and smile at people when I pass by them. I do not ignore my intuition when a situation does not seem right, I take action. Life is a beautiful gift, that’s why its called the present. Living in the moment is the hardest thing to practice, but consciously practicing has been very rewarding and I look forward each new day.