Internet: A threat to some lives...

The transition from a not so technological developed world to a very developed technological world was determined in great part by the creation of what we call Internet. Since its appearance, every human being became dependant on the Internet; companies began to merge into the Internet involving their clients to form part of their businesses through the Internet. With time, Internet was available not only in computers but also in many other electronic devices such as cell phones. People began to have access to it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Internet became a necessity in human beings’ lives.
What would happen if the Internet was to be removed from the world only for a day or even for a couple of hours? If this happened, the world would paralyze, people all over the world would lack communication and would be uniformed. Like everything in the world, the Internet has benefits as well as disadvantages. It can be considered as a great tool for achieving information but people must be careful while using the Internet because every person is able to upload the information they wish to share with no restrictions at all.
In the Internet, limits for achieving knowledge or information of any sort do not exist. Everything that the human mind may imagine is found in the Internet. Many people would support the idea that is great and awesome to have access to information of any type, at anytime, anywhere.
But, what would you think about the Internet if you were the parent of a psychologically damaged teenage girl who committed suicide by following instructions from a first-year medical student who posted an entry in his blog post on how to help terminal ill people to commit suicide? You would not consider the Internet as a positive influence over the world. And, would you have someone to blame for the death of your daughter?
Internet represents a great threat to every person that accesses it. For people like the girl in the case, that have mental and psychological problems, the Internet can represent death itself. This mentally ill girl decided to take away her life, and the Internet became her main ally. We must be very careful with the information we acquire from the web. As it was mentioned before, the Internet is an unrestricted and unlimited communication network where anyone can express or share anything.
Let us consider this case a little closer. If we take an ethical, bioethical, and even a legal (depending on the country) point of view, we would conclude that suicide is a crime. Bioethically, human beings do not have the right to take their lives away from themselves. An individual cannot decide whether to remain alive or not, death must come naturally. Now, if a person has a terminal illness, euthanasia may be possible under a physician’s responsibility and care, and depending on the country and state law. It is important to mention that euthanasia and suicide is not the same thing. Euthanasia “refers to the practice of ending a life in a manner which relieves pain and suffering" and suicide “is the act of a human being intentionally causing his or her own death”.
Suicide is considered to be a crime; therefore, the teenage girl was in some part responsible for the illegal act. But curiously, assisting suicide is also a crime, and this is what the first-year medical student did by uploading information of this sort to the Internet while not being a certified physician and at the same time violating an ethical and moral code. This makes this student highly responsible for the death of this girl. And, what about the weblog content provider? He is also considered guilty by allowing this type of information in blog posts. It is true that free self-expression is a right that all individuals have in the United States, but ethics and moral occupy higher standards because the main goal of people according to bioethics is to promote and take care of humans’ lives.
It is extremely hard, if not impossible, to control the information that makes the Internet. One solution is to educate people on how to have access to appropriate and safe information in the Internet. In this case, I think that students, from the moment they enter medical school they should be obliged to follow an ethical code that if they violate it, they would no longer be able to continue with the medical career.
Parents should try to be more aware of the web pages that their children are visiting especially if their child is mentally ill. Web pages that involve threat should be blocked for at least minors.
In any case, we cannot avoid the use of Internet, but what we can do is to try to be more careful with the information we access. If we want to share something with the world through the Internet we must be conscious of the consequences that our information represents for every person in the world.


"Euthanasia." Wikipedia. N.p., 06/02/2011. Web. 11 Feb 2011. .


"Suicide." Wikipedia. N.p., 09/02/11. Web. 11 Feb 2011. .