On November 28th 2008, death with dignity was first admitted in Korea. Sons and daughters instituted a suit to stop curing and life support for their mother who was in a comatose condition. The court presumed that the patient had the intention to stop the life preservation and approved death with dignity. Before this case, Korea had not admitted death with dignity. Some people insist that death with dignity should be enacted by law, but religious circles and objectors express their anxiousness. What are Chungdaites' opinions? Let's hear other CNU students' opinions.
Death with dignity was not previously admitted in Korea. In 2004, the court made an application of the law designating it as murder and those of the family who ask the patient to leave the hospital are aiding murder and even accusing a doctor who released acerebral hemorrhage patient from hospital. However, the domestic court has recentlydecided to admit death with dignity. Also, recent social trend tends to approve death with dignity. Death with dignity is the act that identifies patients suffering incurable disease or those who are judged by the state of his or her life support and cure would be meaningless, so that they may die directly or indirectly. In this controversial situation, I am against a decision to allow death with dignity and I think it is premature to admit death with dignity.
First of all, the authority to decide upon life is denying the human's absolute worth. Even if one patient loses his or her consciousness, another person can't decide the patient's death or life because it is the act that disregards the value of life. Man is not God. The decision to agree to other's death is to commit murder even though it is decided by good intention. I don't believe in a special religion, but I confirm that the right of life is special and important. It is horrible to imagine that other people can decide my life or death when I could be kept alive even at a vegetative level.
I worry about a trend to make light of human life, which is possible to begin when death with dignity is admitted. People, who agree about euthanasia or death with dignity, say death with dignity is a necessary evil to be selected in extremes. However, death with dignity may degenerate into right of death or way to die fast in a mammonish age and material-based civilization.
Many people take the cheerful view of death with dignity for family or economic reasons, but this view has some problems and contradictions. Other people can't assume the patient's mind and there are some cases that those who are unresponsive may regain their consciousness. To decide the others' death may be simply human's selfishness and arrogance. Also, death with dignity can be misused by some of the so-called bereaved family.
The reason that death with dignity is premature is that the social safety nets have not yet been established. I think death with dignity is not the problem that can be solved just by systematic reform and the enactment of a law. Repair of health insurance system, intensified guarantee, solution for the problem of health, medical, and welfare system, and consolidation of the hospice system should be preceded and revised to complement the system in place. If death with dignity will be executed when social safety nets are not secured, great social confusion would be effected. In the past, the German government enacted a law for reducing the number of lunatic patients and old people who imposed a heavy burden on society, and commanded Nazi doctors to make them die with dignity in 1939. 275,000 people were put to deathbefore the Second World War. Later, the limit of application was widen to include Jews and gypsies. It is a very extreme example, but this nightmare may be repeated when a trend to make light of human life spreads throughout society.
People say that mercy killing and death with dignity are different and passive death with dignity will be fulfilled, but it is an eternal truth that each human being has his or her own right of life. I worry about the side effects of both euthanasia and death with dignity when it is allowed without sufficient arrangements. If death with dignity is not decided with prudence, it must not be taken to effect.
By Jang Ju-ae / Junior
Dept. of Law