The laws currently state that where there can be consent, there must be consent. Meaning that a person always has the right to decide. On top of this consent must also be informed when possible - people have the right to know (and understand) what they are consenting to. There are exceptions to this: the doctrine of emergency and the doctrine of therapeutic privilege. These are for when a person cannot give informed consent, or if they were to be informed it would cause them harm. One may think that there are appropriate laws in place now on the subject of consent and informed consent, however some people abuse these laws. For example (this is a fictional story, with fictional characters, though it could potentially happen):
A man has been drinking alcohol since noon, by 3 pm he is severely intoxicated, though tries to drive home. On the way he runs through several red lights and ends up passing out at the wheel and crossing onto the other side of the road. He then drives into the ditch, hitting a light post. Luckily no civilians are hurt. Within 20 minutes the paramedics are there, and extract the man from his car. When he gets to the hospital, he has regained consciousness but is still groggy. Right away a sample of his blood is taken, as it is suspected that he has been drinking. The doctor's examination of him reveals that he has had a sever concussion and many scrapes and bruises. The results come back, his blood alcohol level was 3 times higher than the legal limit to drive. The driver is then taken into custody and held for 24 hours until he is bailed out. He is charged with driving under the influence which could result in him losing his license, a large fine, and not being able to travel to certain countries (i.e. the US). He has a good lawyer however, who argues that the blood sample was not taken under informed consent. Due to this the prosecution makes a deal with the drunk driver, he still must lose his license for a month and pay a small fine, though his record will be ex-sponged so he will not have to worry about a criminal record.
Is it right that a driver who posed a huge threat to anyone on the road that day, was let off scot free?
The laws around consent should be altered a slight amount to prevent events such as this one from occurring.
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