Abstract
More than a year has passed since the implementation of the “Act on Decisions on Life-sustaining Treatment for Patients in Hospice and Palliative Care or at the End of Life” (hereafter the “Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Act”) in South Korea. Although there have been complaints about the complicated legal documents that the law requires patients to complete when choosing to end life-sustaining treatment, overall this new law has been well received and more patients than expected have made use of the provisions of this law since it was implemented. However, it is now time to reconsider whether the law is serving the purpose for which it was originally designed. I argue in this article that while the expressed purpose of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Act is to respect and enhance patient autonomy, in practice the law seems to do more to reduce socio-economic burden than to protect patient autonomy. Furthermore, this law is transforming the ethical culture within the practice of medicine into a bureaucracy. Greater public debate on this matter is needed to ensure that the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Act serves the purpose for which it was originally designed.
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