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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1426257
This article is part of the Research Topic Public risk perception in public health policies View all 19 articles

Is it really better to "die" than "live"? -Reflections on the practice of "death with dignity"in China

Provisionally accepted
Long Chen Long Chen Minghui Ren Minghui Ren *
  • Department of Global Health,School of public health, Peking University, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Aim:To analyze the causes of the controversy caused by "death with dignity" in China, and to provide some useful thoughts for the practical exploration of "death with dignity".Subject and Methods:By combing the periodical literature, legal texts and practice, we find that the Medical Regulations of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which was revised and passed by China in 2022, recognized the legal effect of "living will" for the first time in legislation, which triggered a wide-ranging social discussion on "death with dignity" and brought many controversies.Results:Due to the influence of traditional culture, policies and laws, medical service supply capacity and other factors, death with dignity suffers from great practical resistance.The exploration of "death with dignity" system needs to start with the problems encountered in practice, focusing on cultivating a good system implementation environment, strengthening the top-level design of "death with dignity" system, and improving the national social security system for hospice care.

    Keywords: Death with dignity, Living Will, Medical autonomy, Hospice Care, view of life

    Received: 17 May 2024; Accepted: 05 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chen and Ren. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Minghui Ren, Department of Global Health,School of public health, Peking University, Beijing, China

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