Punishable Aiding and Inducement in Suicide after Law N.° 21.523: A Delimitation between Psychological Assistance and Inducement

This article analyses the recent incorporation of the offense of inducement to suicide into Article 393 bis of the Chilean Criminal Code, a provision that complements the pre-existing offense of aiding suicide. The research addresses the dogmatic problem posed by the configuration of inducement to suicide as an autonomous criminal wrong, which generates tensions in the delimitation of the different “modalities of psychological participation” that a subject may assume in the suicide of another person. The central objective is to determine how this offence should be interpreted in order to distinguish it dogmatically from conduct that assists or reinforces a suicidal decision, thereby ensuring a coherent and proportionate application of criminal law. To resolve this issue, a two-level interpretative approach is proposed: one psychological, oriented towards the analysis of the motivational state of the suicidal subject, and another normative, centred on the conduct of the intervening party and the degree of influence exerted over the will of the suicidal person. This double approach makes it possible to understand with greater precision the causal dynamics involved in the decision to die and the role that the intervening party plays in that determination, thereby contributing to a clearer grounding of the limits between inducement and aiding suicide.