호프스태터와 예이츠는 인생의 신비함은 결코 틀리지 않으며, 신비하고, 매혹적이라는 점에 동의하는 것 같아 서로 연관성이 있어보여서 서로 비교하면서 읽게 되었다. 인생의 신비로움을 파헤치는 그들의 노력은 환상적이다. 그러나 읽으면 읽을수록 더 혼란스러워지는 것도 사실인 듯하다. 그러나 거의 따라가는 듯도 하며 책을 다 읽은 지금도 신비의 여운이 감돈다.

1. In Korea, since there have been no legislations or legal guidance about discontinuing life-supporting treatment, recent Supreme Court's decision which I deal with in this article has a significant value as this is the first decision to recognizes the withdrawal of life-prolonging measures to the incompetent and pronounce the legal grounds and the requirements of judicial approval. 2. Supreme Court holds as follows; a. Firstly, patients have the right to self-determination which is originated from human dignity and pursuit of happiness. They can previously decide discontinuance of life-sustaining treatment if they are in the condition when there is a degree of medical certainty that there can be no recovery and death is very imminent. This holding says this condition as “the stage of unrecoverable death.” b. Secondly, if patients apparently express their message to withdraw these kinds of medical treatment in the form of ‘living will’ under the informed consent, this expression legally regards them as using the right to self-determination. In addition, even if patients did not have an expression whether they withdraw the treatment, judges can assess whether they are in the stage of unrecoverable death and they can be approved of forgoing life-supporting treatment under the considerable hypothetical circumstances. 3. I point out several arguments in this article. a. To begin with, the decision in this case has some ambiguous and abstract criteria that make judges not easy to assess the recognition of withdrawal in specific cases. This point can make a dangerous consequence how courts depend upon not will of patients will, but attitude and mind of parents or guardians. Therefore I think that this theory which states in this case should more carefully apply the similar cases. b. In addition, I argue that courts should grant the claimant the power of authorizing the discontinuance of extraordinary means of sustaining the vital processes on the condition of observation of due process to make the least possibility of misdiagnose or misjudgment. c. Also I assure that the claim which petitions the discontinuance of sustaining means should be only accepted when the case has an achievement of the proper balance between individual respect as a right and human dignity as constraint, the interest of each party such as patient, parent or guidance, doctor, state or society.