Legal Issues on Medical Interventions in Terminally Ill Patients

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  • 終末期医療と法
  • シュウマツキ イリョウ ト ホウ

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Abstract

How to respond to the terminally ill situation has been an important issue in Japan since the advancement of medical technology makes it possible to prolong life without any hope of recovery, the patient being in the perpetual vegetative state, for instance. In the United States, where four principles of biomedical ethics was born in 1970s, they enacted a natural death act and made a judicial decision, such as Karen Quinlan case, to introduce the new element of ethics of autonomy to respond to the new era. The situation in Japan is static, however, and even today some physicians and lawyers argue that the withdrawal or withholding of a life prolonging measure would give rise to a charge of murder.<br>Now substantial number of parliamentary members prepare a draft bill of the so called death with dignity act. In this article, I analyze each article of this bill to express my concern that it may make the situation worse, while it could give a relief of legal immunity to a medical provider who would comply with the requirement under the bill. Since the law is regarded as formalistic, uniformly applied and inflexible in Japan in general terms, this act if enacted may not help the development of medical ethics in the end of life situation. In consideration of the fact that, since the Health Ministry issued a process guideline for the end of life treatment in 2007, no scandal of police investigation of this sort has occurred, it may be wiser to see the development of health professionals' guidelines and leave the matter to medical ethics.

Journal

  • Iryo To Shakai

    Iryo To Shakai 25 (1), 21-34, 2015

    The Health Care Science Institute

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