Birth, aging, illness and death are inevitable parts of the human experience. Yet, living well does not necessarily mean dying well. For those who have a chronic illness or cancer, or are bedridden due to significant injuries or disabilities, the remainder of life can be a torment for themselves and a hardship for their caregivers. Even if they wish to end their life with dignity, they are not allowed to do so.
Bih Liu-ing (畢柳鶯), former superintendent of Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, introduced the practice of Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking as an alternative to assisted dying, which remains illegal. However, due to the physical and emotional toll associated with such self-enforced fasting, her proposal received limited support within the medical community.
Surveys indicate that up to 86 percent of the public supports assisted dying for terminally ill patients, highlighting a stark contrast between public sentiment and the cautious stance of many medical professionals.
Despite widespread public backing, the question of legalizing assisted dying remains unresolved, entangled in complex ethical and legal debates. Among the most disputed issues is the question of who should carry out the act.
If a patient ends their life by their own hand, it is considered suicide; if done with the help of a medical professional, it becomes assisted suicide — a concept fraught with legal and moral ambiguity. This fundamental dilemma continues to hinder consensus between medical ethics and legal frameworks.
A friend of mine has a father who became paralyzed following a cervical spine injury. According to my friend, his father remains fully conscious and aware of his surroundings, yet is unable to communicate. It is heartbreaking, he said, to watch his father try to speak, but fail — tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
“If the government can decriminalize same-sex marriage and adultery, why can’t it allow patients who are suffering so immensely to pass away peacefully?” he said.
The friend was not trying to dismiss his father’s right to live, he simply could not bear the agony of watching his father contort his features in frustration at not being able to communicate, unable to speak or move. The profound suffering experienced by patients and caregivers leads only to torture for both.
Similarly, former sports commentator Fu Da-ren (傅達仁) had endured a long and painful battle with cancer. He pushed for the legalization of assisted dying, but in vain. Fu ended up having to pay his way to Switzerland to fulfill his final wish of parting the world in peace and on his own terms.
What is even more heartbreaking is that to free their bedridden patients from eternal suffering due to illness, some caregivers would suffocate their patients with pillows or plastic bags — an act of kindness that is dismissed and misrepresented in prevailing ethical norms. The rigidity of the law does not tolerate mercy killings. However, their circumstances nonetheless evoked sympathy among people.
Faced with long-term bedridden patients who struggle to live, and yet are not permitted to end it all on their own terms, should we legislate to help them find relief or let them struggle on in pain until their final breath? The government can no longer look the other way — it must propose a solution.
I ran into a retired colleague when doing my morning exercise one day. He joked that it was pure luck he was still alive. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and had gone through chemotherapy, but he had come to terms with it.
“I exercise every day now — it’s actually so I can leave this world more peacefully in the future,” he said. “Life is uncertain; no one knows when their time will come, but sooner or later, we all have to go. I just hope that when my time comes, I can go peacefully, without pain or attachments. I don’t want to be kept alive with tubes and electric shocks — that only brings suffering to myself and sadness to my family.”
He did not want to burden his children or make things complicated for his spouse. I was impressed in terms of his open-mindedness and optimism of wanting a “good death” when facing the end of life.
People in modern society no longer regard “death” as a taboo and can make practical considerations such as exempting oneself from the suffering of illness, burdening family members or taking up medical resources unnecessarily.
Acknowledging that there has been a rational and open-minded awareness of a good death, the Ministry of Health and Welfare should start taking the matter seriously and provide terminally ill people with the option to come and go as they please. Perhaps for both the family and society, it might well be a kind of relief.
Shiao Fu-song is a lecturer at National Taitung University.
Translated by Jiang Wen-qing
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS