「연명의료결정법」과 환자의 자기결정권에 대한 고찰 = A Review on the 「Act on Life-Sustaining Treatment Determination」 and Patient’s Right to Self-Determination

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

There have been a lot of social demands to make laws for the suspension of ‘medical care for life prolongation’, and as the necessity of legislation was raised, the 「Act on Life-Sustaining Treatment Determination」 was enacted. The 「Act on Life-Sustaining Treatment Determination」, enacted through such a legislative process, should protect the dignity and value as a human being by guaranteeing the best interests for the patients and respecting their own decisions, as stated in its purpose. This means that the patient in the dying process could decide the medical care for life prolongation, while maintaining his or her own dignity and value, and this decision must be made by the individual's self-determination. Thus, the patient's right to self-determination will always have to be judged carefully and objectively, in which it would be fair to surely judge whether or not it might be based on the patient's intent. In this way, the ‘advance directives’ is evaluated as the intention of the patient in the dying process to acknowledge the right to self-determination, or the right to his or her own life, through the decision on the medical care for life prolongation.
Meanwhile, through the enactment of the 「Act on Life-Sustaining Treatment Determination」, the legal and institutional grounds for patients in the death-dying process to receive the best-possible care was arranged. In addition, since the procedures and requirements on the decisions, such as the suspension for the medical care for life prolongation and so on were specifically stipulated in this Law, unless there might be the intention confirmation of patients for the decision on the medical care for life prolongation in the end-of-life care, the confusion hereon could be prevented, which might also have a positive effect that a culture to prepare for death could be formed.
However, even though the Law was enacted by forming the social consensus through various processes of discussion, there might be the negative aspects, and if a need to amend it would be raised, it should be rightly revised to solve it. It is because it is needed to be more careful as the 「Act on Life-Sustaining Treatment Determination」, first of all, is to shorten the human life artificially.
Accordingly, by discussing again the issues which have already been brought up concerning the 「Act on Life-Sustaining Treatment Determination」, it would be necessary to rapidly incorporate the results into the revision work in the orientation where the purposes at that time might be faithfully implemented. In addition, the 「Act on Life-Sustaining Treatment Determination」 itself, is surely important, but how to operate the law is also very significant. It must be judged carefully through the specific and objective criteria as much as possible, and such rational standards may be remained as a task to be prepared and supplemented in the subsequent lower statutes.