Debate Rekindled Over Euthanasia
By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
A family has filed a petition to a court to allow their mother to die with dignity. The legal request for euthanasia is the first of its kind, and as the current law bans any form of assisted suicide, the move has rekindled the debate on the topic.
A 75-year-old woman has been brain dead, receiving medical care at the Severance Hospital in Sinchon, Seoul but Kim's children claimed that extending her life using medical devices would prolong her ``painful'' and ``meaningless'' survival.
``My mother wouldn't have wanted to extend her life like this given her personality,'' one of Kim's children said in an application for the request. ``She said it was important to die with dignity when she opposed an operation for her late husband in 2005.''
The Christian family asked the court to disallow the use of respirator and injection of medicines as well as nourishment and water. They also requested the prohibition of using cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at the moment of death.
Death with dignity is different from the common concept of euthanasia or mercy killing. While euthanasia is widely classified as allowing the terminally ill to die instead of maintaining medical treatment to keep them alive, death with dignity is a move to let people die instead of trying to revive them in the event of an emergency, and to permit the terminally ill to determine the time of their death.
Kim was hospitalized on Feb. 16 when she first displayed symptoms of pneumonia but her brain was severely damaged as her heart stopped for about 10 minutes due to excessive bleeding when undergoing a bronchoscope examination. She has since shown no signs of improvement and is being kept alive by medical equipment.
The lawyer for Kim's family said that there was no cure for brain death and their request to let their mother die in peace with dignity was natural.
``There have been heated debates on euthanasia here and some countries have already allowed limited euthanasia,'' the lawyer said. ``We believe that it's time to discuss it.''
But opponents claim that it could provide loopholes in the use of euthanasia. Religious groups argue that ``humans should not decide any kind of death.''
It is highly unlikely that the request by Kim's family will be accepted. The current law sees the removal of a respirator from brain dead patients as murder.
In 2004, the court convicted a family of murder after they removed a relative who had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage from hospital. A doctor was charged with aiding and abetting murder as he allowed the family to do so.
Last year, a father was sentenced to a four-year suspended jail term for the removal of a respirator from his brain-dead son.
But the Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to adopt a form of ``limited euthanasia'' to allow the medical treatment keeping terminal cancer patients alive to be withdrawn at the last minute.
In other countries, euthanasia has been fiercely debated and some of them now allow limited euthanasia.
In the United States and Taiwan, patients can sign a DNR ― Do Not Resuscitate ― notice and can even decide the extent of treatment they want, through consultation with their doctors.
In 1993, the Netherlands allowed doctor-assisted suicide and in 2002, physician-assisted suicide was approved of in Belgium.