Social apathy.
Apathy is having no emotion, no feeling, no interest, or no concern about something or everything. Therefore, an apathetic individual is a person who has no concern in social, emotional, spiritual, philosophical, virtual, and physical matters. Such kinds of individuals have either suppressed their emotions and passion or lack that aspect.
Good Samaritan laws are legal protections given to a person who gives reasonable assistance or help to those in distress. The main reason why these laws were established was to encourage people to help those in need of emergency help without hesitation. It had been realized that people feared to offer assistance to individuals because they feared that they would also face charges in case the person they helped was a criminal.
The world has hit many people hard, and they have opted to join criminal activities to be able to survive during these tough economic times. As a result, many people have fallen prey to robbers and conmen who deal mercilessly with others. The only thing people care for is to be safe because the only thing you can ever be sure of in this 21st century is yourself. This has caused many individuals to have no business getting concerned with anything rather than themselves and their immediate family members. Even if they met an individual with a bullet wound crawling on the streets, bleeding out, and on the verge of death, most people would turn their faces and pretend they did not just see what they saw.
The last thing any individual would want to do is to get involved in a crime without planning. In such a case, passersby would fear to help because they asked themselves, what if the person was gunned down by law enforcement officers yet managed to escape. What if I help him or her then I will be accused of being an accomplice of a crime I know nothing about and so on.
The need to protect ourselves from harm like being arrested and charged for a crime that you did not commit has made us lose the human nature we are supposed to have. Humans are supposed to be very sympathetic and empathetic. The fact that we are closing out our emotions, concerns, and interest in anything that we feel does not affect us directly is slowly making us apathetic.
The fact that we meet people out there in the streets does not mean we should not care about them because humanity is more important than anything else at the end of the day. We are not supposed to watch ourselves grow animosity to the extent that we do not feel affected when our fellows are in a life-threatening situation.
The good Samaritan act was implemented to make the world a better place. After all, by giving people who help others protection from being mistaken for being an accomplice of the lawbreaking that the victim in need had taken part in, more people are encouraged to offer help to whoever needs it because they are confident that their hands will not get dirty.
The Good Samaritan law offers legal protection in the form of exclusion from liability and lawsuits by safeguarding those who provide help to individuals during emergency times. Further, since it is supposed to encourage people to save others’ lives, it is only given to civilians who helped out an individual or a medical practitioner who was not on duty at the time he or she was offering that help.
The law is particular about some conditions that need to be considered before the person is given protection. The situation must be an emergency, and the victim receiving aid must be injured. An individual cannot be protected if, for example, he or she walked into a crime scene then helped someone escape custody. Consequently, the person giving the aid must be doing it in good faith and expecting no financial or material reward in return for the favor done. Also, the law does not offer protection if recklessness or carelessness was done. If the victim is hurt even the more because the person offering help insisted on doing procedures on the victim, yet he or she is unqualified, the law cannot protect them anymore.
The Good Samaritan law states explicitly if the victim being given urgent help cannot respond or is unconscious, the person who finds them and has had the privilege of witnessing the incident can testify on the grounds of implied consent. This is can only happen if the individual is willing to testify, and no one can coerce anyone to attest if the individual does not feel comfortable doing so.
The law was put in place also to help persons who were under the influence of illicit drugs. People were used to having the police arrest everyone who was at the home where a raid was carried out, and drugs recovered. The law now offered protection to family and friends who would report someone of either selling or abusing illicit drugs. Also, in case someone found an individual in a life-threatening situation after taking the drugs, then that person administers first aid to save the life of that drug addict, the person would not be considered to have done crime while saving a criminal because the law protected them.
It is vital for Good Samaritan laws to be put because they need to remind people that humanity is essential and can be rewarded. We live in a society where people merely live like their only duty is to ensure their safety and well-being. We are almost letting the pursuit of good things for ourselves blind our humane traits. For instance, you may walk through the streets someday and find an injured person on the road asking for help. Many people will not offer help because they cannot determine whether the individual is honestly hurt or injured during an escape from police officers’ custody or when doing illegal deals.