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The Slippery Slope Paradox: When Restricting Autonomy Fuels Demands for Physician-Assisted Dying

Authors

  • Claire Junga Kim Dong-A University
Vol. 31 No. 2 (2025): NARRATIVAS BIOÉTICAS
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Abstract

Korea’s system for end-of-life care and letting people die is quite rigid in the direction of maintaining life. The Life-sustaining Treatment Decision Act was enacted in 2016, but there was little opportunity for the breadth and depth of public discussion to develop before that. This paper aims to show the “concerns about the slippery slope” that some of the participants in the legislative debate had as one of the historical reasons for creating the conservative framework and detailed provisions of Korea’s Life-sustaining Treatment Decision Act. Because of their arguments, the law was structured as a barricade to prevent slippery slopes. However, in 2022, the fifth year after the law took effect, a bill was proposed to legalize physician-assisted dying. This paper makes a worrisome prediction that this radical movement will continue unless it is possible to set treatment goals tailored to the patient’s medical condition and values through the guarantee of the right to refuse treatment.

Keywords:

self-determination, personal autonomy, assisted death, treatment refusals, refusal of treatment
How to Cite
Kim, C. J. . (2025). The Slippery Slope Paradox: When Restricting Autonomy Fuels Demands for Physician-Assisted Dying. Acta Bioethica, 31(2), 237–244. Retrieved from https://actabioethica.uchile.cl/index.php/AB/article/view/80000
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Acta Bioethica
Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios en Bioética
Universidad de Chile
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