Growing number of Koreans choose dignified death, forgoing life-prolonging treatment
Published: 11 Aug. 2025, 13:47
![An intensive care unit at a major hospital [YONHAP]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/08/11/4cacb507-1192-4d31-859b-52aba34a8c76.jpg)
An intensive care unit at a major hospital [YONHAP]
More than 3 million Koreans have formally declared that they would forgo futile life-prolonging treatment, with women making up two-thirds of the signatories — a growing movement to take control over life’s final chapter.
As of Sunday, the National Agency for Management of Life-Sustaining Treatment reported that 3,003,237 people registered an Advance Directive on Life-Sustaining Treatment, a document stating they do not want life-prolonging treatment or wish to receive hospice care.
Any adult aged 19 or older can register the directive at one of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s designated agencies after receiving sufficient explanation and signing it.
Registration continues to rise. At the end of last month, the total stood at 2,989,812, but it passed the 3 million mark this month.
It took seven-and-a-half years since Korea fully implemented the life-sustaining treatment decision law in February 2018. In the law’s first year, only about 86,000 people registered, but the trend gained momentum, reaching 1 million in August 2021 and 2 million in October 2023.
Women make up 1,990,818 of those registrations — about twice as many as men at 998,994. Registrations increase with age, with people in their 70s forming the largest group at 1,175,296, followed by those in their 60s and people aged 80 and above. Notably, nearly one in four elderly women aged 65 or older or about 24.9 percent expressed their intent not to continue life-prolonging treatment.
A total of 443,970 patients have had life-sustaining treatment withdrawn under their directives or related documents as of Sunday. The law applies only to patients in the “terminal stage,” defined as having no chance of recovery and rapidly worsening symptoms, allowing life-prolonging measures such as CPR or mechanical ventilation to be stopped for them.
![Medical staff at Incheon Sejong Hospital in Incheon check on a patient recovering in the intensive care unit after a heart transplant on April 18. [INCHEON SEJONG HOSPITAL]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/08/11/00ebedb7-61a3-46c3-b406-fac4d71fa1c3.jpg)
Medical staff at Incheon Sejong Hospital in Incheon check on a patient recovering in the intensive care unit after a heart transplant on April 18. [INCHEON SEJONG HOSPITAL]
Support for dignified death grows. A survey by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs of 1,021 adults last year found that 91.9 percent said they would stop life-prolonging treatment if they became terminally ill or were in the final stage of life.
Support for the currently illegal “assisted dying” — doctor-assisted suicide — stood at 82 percent.
Social debate is already underway about expanding the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment beyond the terminal stage to include the “end stage,” when death is likely within months.
The government’s Second Comprehensive Plan on Hospice and Life-Sustaining Treatment (2024–28) includes proposals to advance the timing of treatment withdrawal into that “end stage.”
Welfare Minister Jeong Eun-kyeong also expressed support for widening the scope in a recent written response during her nomination hearing.
"Because the implementation of decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment is limited to the terminal stage, there are concerns that it restricts patients’ right to self-determination and the guarantee of their best interests," she said. "I agree on the need to consider expanding the scope of implementation."
Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY JUNG JONG-HOON [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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