In 1982, Portugal followed the precedent of most European legal systems by criminally penalizing persons who fail to provide aid or summon help for those requiring such assistance. Anglo-American legal codes, with rare exceptions, have resisted penalizing such acts of omission, and jurisprudents have defended this position with a variety of ethical and legal explanations. The article examines the initial cases which came before the courts under the new Portuguese law in order to provide empirical information bearing on traditional objections to criminalizing failure-to-rescue. It then critically reviews general reservations about duty-to-rescue provisions
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