If it's done between consenting adults, it should not be illegal, since, there is no crime.
Discussion
I like how it sounds, but I'm not sure it could live as an absolute rule. If I consent to you killing me, does that mean it shouldn't be illegal for you to do it?
Murder is still a crime. The underlying principle of libertarianism, also known as the NAP, can be summed up like this, "Don't hurt me and don't touch my stuff." anything outside of that should be lawful. You still need contract law though because defrauding someone is touching their stuff.
But what if I consent though?
If I consent to you touching my stuff, then that's ok.
If I consent to you killing me, is that ok?
Don't know about the others, but I think if the consent is valid, then no offense has occurred. There was a notorious case about this in Germany maybe twenty years ago.
They stung the guy with desecrating a corpse or some such, couldn't get anything resembling murder to stick
At the very least you would and should end up being investigated. You could go to jail even if it was a consentual murder if you were misunderstood. That makes even consentual murder risky.
I agree, it is risky, in this example consent makes the difference between going to prison for the rest of your life or facing no consequences at all.
As we know, consent can be a fickle and hard to prove thing even when both parties are still alive to tell their story. If one of them is dead, then I don't think there's any way justice could ever be served.
I think in these instances, you get better outcomes erring on the side of a rule that just bans it altogether.
Your rule would have to be interestingly drafted to navigate around:
- Abortion
- Risky medical procedures, esp cosmetic ones
- "Bug chasing"
- Euthanasia
The above to one side, I, respectfully, cannot agree with the logic of blanket banning anything preemptively "just to be safe". Consensual (or apparently-consensual) murder is so rare that when/if it comes up - just give the case to a jury to hear the facts in evidence and decide if they believe the consent was valid.
(This is an example of why I believe precedent-based law is superior to legislation-based law)