[Editorial] Guideline of Korean Medical Association Require Social Consensus

There will be no objection that the purpose of medical activity is to save the lives of human being. And the social consensus must be preceded to justify any medical activity against such a purpose. Therefore, the announcement of the guideline by the Korean Medical Association was too hasty.

The doctor`s ethical code involves three problematic stipulations such as the interruption of medical treatment to the irrecoverable patients, abortion, and the definition of brain death. The ethical code actually acknowledges a passive artificial euthanasia by describing `when family members or representatives of the irrecoverable patient request the interruption of the treatment by a written document, doctors may accept the request`. In addition, the ethical code approves of abortion that the law does not allow for exceptional cases, and takes the brain death as well as the cardiac death as a standard for death declaration.

There are some truths in the KMA`s assertion that the life expansion of patients, who cannot possibly be recovered by modern medical science, impose nothing but the suffering on patients and their family members. The acceptance of brain death is probably intending to reduce meaningless medical treatments. And it is well known that over 1.5 million abortion operations have been carried out every year.

However, the clear problem is that the 3 problematic stipulations are against the actual law. Three years ago, a doctor who allowed a patient to be discharged from the hospital by the request of the patient`s wife, was charged for murder by the court after the patient died. And the maternity health law allows abortion only in five exceptional cases and the brain death is accepted only for the organ transplantation.

The ethical code is likely to accelerate the trend to make light of human life. The low-income class will be the victims of the passive euthanasia. Extremely speaking, the recoverable patients could be killed by the suspension of medical treatment, because of the families who cannot afford the cost of treatment. In addition, experts indicate that, if abortion is accepted, it will bring about a vicious cycle between sexual disorder and increasing abortion.

The KMA revealed that `the ethical code is simply a guideline without any obligation.` However, medical doctors will set an ethical standard by this ethical code and it is not difficult to imagine how much the code brings about social confusions. That`s why even the KMA has delayed its announcement of the ethical code that was adopted in April this year.

The problematic stipulations are very sensitive issues that are still on the controversies even in the foreign countries. Even if the actual law is far from the reality as the KMA maintained, the ethical codes that violate the law cannot be justified. KMA should take a step to collect the social opinions to find the social consensus on this issue rather than to enforce the ethical code.