Agenda for End-of-Life Decision-Making in Korea

Sohn, Myongsei

Abstract

After a year of court trials initiated by the immediate family of a patient in a permanent vegetative state, the National Supreme Court of Korea ruled that the family have the right to decide for the removal of ventilator from the patient. This was a particularly significant court case that established a precedent for the Korean society as a whole, since there currently is no statutory framework regarding rights to self-determination to refuse any extraordinary means of treatment in Korean legal system. While much of Korean healthcare providers and the government itself have focused on designing and developing a comprehensive blueprint for Advance Health Directives for patients, the recent outcome has created an important opportunity for all parties of the Korean society. Therefore, the Korean government and legislature will need to systematically study and establish a procedural preparation for legislation. The providers will also have to carefully examine the moral and ethical dimensions of Advance Directives to promote the patients' interests in accordance with civil rights of the patients. Lastly and most importantly, the individuals must reflect on our own moral values, regardless of their current health. To exercise their own will and to relieve their relatives from difficult decisions, they must also educate themselves about living will and healthcare proxy, and elucidate their value history with family. No one can exactly lay out the course of life to death, but it is possible to steer the final journey of life to a more humane death. A society must value the life itself, but the journey to death should also be made humane by respecting one's own choice.