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KMID : 1234820080090010413
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Korean Society of Law and Medicine
2008 Volume.9 No. 1 p.413 ~ p.459
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Social Implication of Living Wills, Advance Directives and Natural Death Act in Korea
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Lee In-Young
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Abstract
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The Law has intervened to define rare circumstances in which a person should choose continuing life in United States. On the one hand, the law has traditionally acted to preservelife and to respect the sanctity of life. On the other hand, one’s control over one’s own body, and the right to determine what kind of medical care one will receive, is equally well respected and historically grounded. The competent patients have the right to forgo life-sustaining treatment, courts in United States have left many unanswered questions about the nature of that right. The right to choose to forgo life-sustaining treatment is a manifestation of a patient’s autonomy interest. In United States, The Karen Quilan case gave rise to legislative activity in the host of state capitals, and several states had adopted statutes that formally recognized some forms of written directives describing some circumstances in which certain kinds of medical care could be terminated. These statues were sometimes dominated ’living will’ acts, sometimes ’right to die’ acts and ocasionally ’natural death’ acts. Today virtually every state has produced a living will statue. In Korea, courts do not permit a terminally ill person to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment. Living wills apply in case of terminal illness owing to a defect in legislation. Now In Korea, these lively dispute of legal policy on the preconditions and concrete procedure of living will act and natural death act. Through the legislation of living will act and natural death act, we should prepare some circumstances to respect patient’s autonomy on the right to die. We should frame the cultural standard to make a decision of forgoing life-sustainin1g treatment under the discreet procedure.
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KEYWORD
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euthanasia, natural death act, living will, advance directives, death with dignity, physician-assisted suicide
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FullTexts / Linksout information
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