Ethics About Medical Dignified Death In China

As a proper term in medical circumstances, dignified death is different from sacrificing life for righteousness or self-defending suicide. Dignified death meets its need in China, which is caused by the advance of medical techniques and determined by human nature. The understanding of human is the basis of the understanding of dignity and death.A definition with all necessary and sufficient features can be given as a preparation for the discussion about it within ethics, by following the causal chain of the name, and taking the meanings of dignity and death as premises. The proper definition of dignified death should refer to a medical treatment for those who are diagnosed as life limited, unable to live without life sustaining medical treatment, and willing to limit their treatment in order to preserve their dignity. One's will of dignified death should be respected if it fits the proper definition mentioned above. The differences between dignified death and euthanasia are significant.The biological life of human is not always the most valuable when compared with other values. Doctors have responsibility to cure patients, but they have no rights or duties to over-treat. Medical science is developing, but there will always be a limitation on its own, the aim of medicine is avoiding premature death, not avoiding natural death. The behaviors of doctors are under strict supervise of eligible professional standards, government and healthcare industry can design specifications and safety precautions to keep it done right. There would be some benefits of dignified death to society, but those social utilitarian benefits cannot be considered as the moral motivation to support dignified death. According to the basic biomedical principles, namely respect autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficiality and justice, Dignified death have all rights to be respected.The practice of dignified death in China need to adjust accordingly to national conditions and traditional culture. We could find support in Chinese traditional ethical thoughts of Confucianism and Taoism. Those traditional thoughts and the idea behind medical dignified death share empathetic humanistic concern and common view of life and death. And the limitation of the empathizes shows why medical dignified death is respectful for it's own reasonability.Dignified death can be put into practice only when the social psychological foundation, culture environment, policies, especially healthcare insurance policy, and laws are ready to support. As the society develops, the foundations will be in position, by theoretical and systematic construction, dignified death can, and should, be actualized.