Some lives are harder to live than others. When your body is constantly on the verge of giving out on you like a broken lightbulb going on and off, it becomes much easier to entertain the idea of death. Those who experience the worst kinds of physical pain are increasingly deciding to make that idea of death a reality. It’s called assisted dying, and it’s been catching on fast: it has been accessible in parts of Europe for years, and just this October, Uruguay became the first in Latin America to legalize it.

In Korea, progress on assisted dying has been much slower. The closest Korean law that approaches legal euthanasia is the Act on Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment, passed in 2018. Unlike Switzerland and the like, where applicants can directly ask their doctors for life-ending medication, Korea only allows patients the choice to turn off their life support. The 2018 Act is a step forward, but compared to other nations, Korea still grants ill and disabled people less autonomy over their death.

While discussions are lagging on a government level, the demand is persistently there. According to a poll conducted by the Korean Society for Hospice and Palliative Care, 40% of respondents were in favor of being euthanized if they were diagnosed with late-stage cancer. 10 Koreans so far have gone to Switzerland to be euthanized. Yet despite the demand, no new laws have been passed since 2018. Those without the ability to travel overseas are stranded on the peninsula with no end in sight for their pain.

One may reasonably say that this is an injustice. The increasing prominence of the “my body, my choice” philosophy has enabled revolutionary progress for abortion laws in recent years. The movement for the “right to die” is a natural extension of this sentiment—to deny people experiencing extreme pain a way out is to deny their bodily autonomy. Legalizing assisted dying, however, comes with several debilitating pitfalls that exist outside of that purely theoretical vacuum: namely, handing the government even more tools to kill you.

Note how I said “even more.” The government already wants to kill you—more precisely, it wants to kill certain people over others. Cameroonian political theorist Achille Mbembe argues in his essay Necropolitics that the government can “cheapen” the lives of select populations to determine who should live or die. Those who should die—the insane, sick, and undesirable—are condemned to a state of “Slow Death” where they are suspended between life and death. The disabled are seen as useless and economically unproductive. While their physical bodies are kept alive by the healthcare system, they progress through a slow process of social death. Their existence is socially convicted as burdensome: in effect, cheapened. They are deemed expendable and disposable.

The legalization of assisted dying accelerates this Slow Death into an Immediate Death. According to a survey in Canada by the Angus Reid Institute, 6% of those surveyed knew someone who was offered Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) unsolicited. 3 out of 5 respondents were concerned that patients receiving inadequate treatment, or otherwise in a mentally vulnerable state, could be easily coerced to accept MAiD. What MAiD offers to disabled Canadians undergoing Slow Death is an “easy way out”—not just from the pain, but also from the judgment, the horrific realization of the dispensability of their own life (Procknow). In Korea, where Confucian ideals hold society in a chokehold, the risk of this Slow Social Death to Immediate Literal Death pipeline is even higher. A poll conducted by Hankook Research revealed that 20% of respondents supported assisted dying over concerns of “pain and burden inflicted on the family.” What this reveals is that for many Koreans, more so than any other country, the choice to die will heavily rest upon what others would think of their family. Under the pressure of social death, assisted dying is not an autonomous choice, but an illusion of it. And as long as the government does not discourage the ostracization of disabled people, it will remain a tool that accelerates the tacit removal of “burdensome undesirables.”

For assisted dying to stand as a true means of achieving bodily autonomy, the government should stop wanting to kill me. Korea as a whole would have to work on destigmatizing the existence of disabled people. Granting disabled people equality in basic everyday processes, such as mobility rights, would be a start; stopping the constant demonization of disabled protesters would be the bare minimum. Even after that, assisted dying should be granted cautiously, and only to individuals who clearly express that they want it. Some lives are harder to live than others. An understandable portion of them should be allowed a dignified death. Yet, the remaining portion is not selfish to want to live on regardless.