Assisting Suicide: a Problem for the Criminal Law (IN: Suicide: the Philosophical Issues, ed. by M P Battin & D J Mayo)

Francis argues that the law provides neither protection for the person who assists the suicide of a terminally ill friend nor assurance of punishment for the person who would coerce another into suicide. Francis points out the deficiencies of various legal approaches to the problem of assisting suicide & proposes a solution which will, she thinks, allow the law to differentiate between those cases of assisting suicide which we find sympathetic & those which we find morally repugnant. (18 refs.)