By Kim Jae-won
A hearing on the legalization of the right to die with dignity drew general support among interested parties Wednesday despite lingering differences about the details.
The Presidential Committee on Bioethics invited patients’ advocates, doctors and religious leaders to participate in the meeting.
Two previous attempts at legalizing “death with dignity” were largely unsuccessful.
“We welcome an effort to legalize the right to die with dignity. However, patients or their family members should decide it rather than doctors,” said An Ki-jong, co-head of the Korea Organization for Patient Groups.
An said the bill should not limit people’s right to get life-sustaining treatment, if they so choose.
Heo Dae-seok, a doctor at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH), said that Korea needs to adopt the U.S. model of advance care planning called Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST).
The SNUH doctor said that POLST is a form that states what kind of medical treatment patients want toward the end of their lives. Printed on bright pink paper, and signed by both doctor and patient, POLST offers terminally ill patients more control of the type of end-of-life choices they can make.
Religious leaders were somewhat hesitant to endorse the legalization.
“We worry that death with dignity can be translated into euthanasia. It should be allowed only when patients show the apparent will to do so after consultations with doctors,” said Jeong Jae-woo, a professor at Nicholas Cardinal Cheong Graduate School for Life at the Catholic University of Korea.
Currently, there is no law related to life-sustaining treatment. Due to the lack of a legal basis, this type of care has repeatedly triggered legal disputes between doctors and families of terminally-ill patients.
The government seeks to pass the death with dignity bill, reflecting a Supreme Court ruling in 2009, which approved a petition from the family of a comatose 75-year-old female patient, surnamed Kim.
The highest court approved the removal of Kim’s respirators because she expressed the desire not to receive life-sustaining treatment before she fell into the coma.
Observers say the late Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan had a positive influence on public awareness about the right to die with dignity because he faced his death naturally at the age of 86 in 2009 by refusing any life-support.