醫師協助死亡之法律爭議與倫理反思－英國法制之視野

Legal and Ethical Reflections on Physician-assisted Dying: A United Kingdom Perspective

謝國欣(Kuo-Hsing Hsieh) ； 歐陽薇(Wei Ouyang)

《法治與公共治理學報》 1期 (2013/12) Pp. 41-58

摘要

自1930年代初期開始，英國政府持續面臨關於協助死亡法律不斷發酵之爭議。英國「協助死亡委員會」於2012年1月提出「協助死亡法草案」，嘗試倡導協助死亡合法化。本文將從法律與倫理兩個層面研析此議題。第一，從法律角度切入，我們從實際案例出發，欲處理之主要問題有二：探討歐洲人權公約第2條究竟有無保障「死亡權」？與個人有無拒絕延續生命的醫療處置權？當生命神聖原則與自我決定原則發生衝突時，應如何處理？醫師協助死亡能否考慮除罪化？分析吾等所面臨之法律挑戰。第二，從倫理角度觀察，倫理協助我們做出正確抉擇，研析此草案所涉及之核心醫學倫理議題，反思在醫師協助死亡議題中，醫療思維之核心理念究竟為何？

關鍵字

醫師協助死亡 ； 法律爭議 ； 醫學倫理

並列摘要

Assisted dying has remained one of the most controversial and unresolved legal and ethical issues in and beyond UK for decades. In January 2012, the British Commission on Assisted Dying proposed A draft Assisted Dying Bill for consultation, in support of legalizing assisted dying. This article will examine issues of physician-assisted dying from legal and ethical viewpoints. First, one focus of this article is to address on legal challenges raised by assisted dying. Questions raised include: whether the right to die could be read into the right to life protected by Article 2 of ECHR? How to resolve the conflicts between the principle of the sanctity of human life and the principle of patient autonomy? And, whether physician-assisted dying shall be legalized? Second, it pinpoints ethical controversies generated by assisted dying. What the underlying medical and moral reasoning is when one comes to the end of life decision would be the key question to be examined in this part.

並列關鍵字

physician-assisted dying ； legal controversy ； medical ethics