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Subscribe to RSSA terminally ill woman in New York is fighting for her right to die and to be removed from life support, but her parents are suing to stop her. WNBC's Roseanne Colletti reports.
When your time comes to die, you probably hope that you will be surrounded by loving family members and friends who will support you and help you leave this earth at peace with one another. Sadly, for 28 year-old SungEun Grace Lee, who is dying in a Long Island hospital, that is not happening.
Lee, who goes by the name Grace, is suffering from an incurable tumor boring into her brain stem. She’s paralyzed from the neck down, hooked up to a machine that breathes for her and is on a feeding tube. She’s fully conscious and cognitively alert, but has lost all control over her body and her basic bodily functions.
Eventually, the tumor will kill her.
Rather than suffer a slow, miserable death, Grace has requested that doctors take away the life support. After determining that she was mentally competent, doctors at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., prepared to shut off her life support. But her parents did not agree. They tried to talk hospital officials out of disconnecting her machines.
Her father Man Ho Lee is the pastor of the Antioch Missionary Church in Flushing, N.Y. He and his wife, Jin Ah Lee, could not accept their daughter’s decision. They see what she is doing as a suicide, against God’s will and the work of Satan.
They warned Grace she would go straight to hell if she insisted on no more life-extending care. They urged her to leave the hospital and go to a nursing home.
On September 28, the Lees went to court to have Grace declared incompetent and to have her father appointed as her guardian with the authority to make all medical decisions for her. The fight between Grace and her parents was reported this week in the New York Daily News.
Grace’s court-appointed attorney David A. Smith argued before Nassau County Justice Thomas P. Phelan that there was no foundation at all for the guardianship. Grace had said over and over again that she wanted to die. Her doctors believed she was and remained competent. Judge Phelan agreed and did not grant the guardianship.
Her parents immediately appealed that decision to a higher court. That court has now ruled, refusing to grant the parents request, the New York Daily News reported Friday.
The parents had produced a grainy videotape of Grace which they said shows her saying she wants to live and wants to leave the hospital.
Such tapes made by families with agendas cannot be trusted. As was true in the Terri Schiavo case, what you see on a highly edited tape cannot be trusted. Schiavo’s parents, who did not want her feeding tube removed, said their tape showed she could track a balloon and recognize them.
An autopsy showed Schiavo had long been blind, her brain shrunken to the size of a walnut.
Grace Lee has the absolute right, as do you or I, to stop her medical care. There is no duty for any competent adult to be a patient or to let doctors give treatments that are not wanted. Jehovah’s Witnesses can refuse life-saving blood transfusions; Christian Scientists and Evangelicals can pray rather than go to the hospital when disease appears.
I don't agree that is wise to do, but I do agree that they and the rest of us have a fundamental right to control what is done by doctors to our bodies.
Grace’s parents are doing what they think is right. But they are horribly wrong. Their daughter is going to die, if not tomorrow, then very soon. They need to come to accept her decision about how that will happen. They can try to change her mind but to have their final days with her entangled with hopeless legal proceedings is not what a dying daughter needs.
Let’s hope this family can come together before it is too late to do so.
Arthur Caplan is the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center
1st Question: "are you willing to sign the health proxy to your father?"
2nd Question: "When do you want to leave to go to Nursing Home?
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Poor child...she's obviously made her peace with God. May you soon rest in peace. :(
Grace: May peace soon be with you.
Parents: Love your daughter enough to allow her suffering to end. Allow her soul to be freed from her physical prison.
This is a very sad situation for all. Hard for her family but they must see that she is suffering and just plain tired of this life that is not a life. If it were my daughter it would be extremely difficult to lose her. But it would be selfish of me to go against my daughter's request to die. I would not want to lose her but could not bear her suffering day afte day. So I would have to abide by her wish to die. I know people are different and have certain beliefs and I understand. Hopefully they will come to see that if it is God's will for her to die, keeping her on life support is a slow agonzing death for her.
It is braver to make the decision to end your life than to suffer and ebb away suffering...you have to understand the beliefs of her parents but at the end the patient who is competant and can make her own decisions should be given that choice...God bless her and to end of her suffering...
Every one of us has our own, individual beliefs and are beholden to them to varying degrees. These parents are being challenged by life in a most cruel way. I do not pray, but I always hope, and I hope first for some anomaly in nature which would return this young lady to health and my second hope will be that her parents can find middle ground in their minds that allow them to support the daughter's wishes and give them all peace.
There, but for random chance, go we all...
I read so many posts blasting the parents, calling them hypocrites, and more. First, try wearing their shoes who loves their daughter and love the faith they believe. Next, try to understand the young girl who is struggling with this, enduring the pain and suffering of a disease that is slowly eating away at her. I can understand her pain and choice to want to have life support stopped, but I can understand the parents who love their daughter and do not want to see her die. Try to understand each side and then speak from you heart to both.
To the parents we should try to help them understand their daughter's decision, not call them selfish, hypocrites, or other names. Do not add injury to insult!
Choosing to stop life support is saying "no" to a process in place designed to keep someone alive who is already dying. Unless, the doctors say that there is a cure and the young girl has great chances to live, then let the young girl's desicion stand, "Stop the life support." Life support is just that, "Supporting a dying life."
Stopping life support is not passive or active suicide. It is letting the natural process come to its own conclusion, the end of life. Every person has the right to decide what to do with their bodies when they are sick, living with a terminal disease, and dying. Every person has the right to say, "I want to quit the pain and suffering. I want to die in peace."
If she is a Christian, as I believe she is, then she has made peace with God through Jesus Christ. The fact that she is dying says to me that God is already telling her the time is nigh, "Look up and see your salvation. Come home."
Mom and dad, your daughter loves you. I know you love her. She is not in danger of losing her salvation, the process has already begun. Just let it happen. She does not need to suffer longer. Let her go.
I largely agree with what you say. I, too, disagree vehemently with the parents' response...but that's not to say I can't understand it.
I think you can take religion out of completely, and it's still an understandable sentiment--to me, the entire situation seems a lot simpler than it's being made out to be. If I try to picture how I would feel if the people I love the most lay dying in a hospital, I can't honestly say how I would act. I would be inconsolable. I hope I would have my wits about me enough to be there for whoever's life was ending, and comfort them as much as possible. I truly hope I wouldn't do anything terrible or stupid, but to say the least, I know I wouldn't be 100% in my right mind, overcome with grief as I'd be.
They, overcome with grief and not completely in their right minds, use religion as a reason not to let their daughter go...but, really, would the situation be so terribly different if they used any other excuse?
I really doubt it. Any excuse would be just as weak, and would would make the situation painful all the same. Whatever other motivations may exist, one is certain: they are desperate not to lose their daughter, and desperate people do desperate things.
All three of them have my sympathy. Despite their feelings on the matter, I hope her parents have the wherewithal let her go, anyway, before it ruins their lives, too.
She is not a "young girl"; she is a woman. A grown, adult, competent woman who made a decision her parents had no right to meddle with. Even if there were a great chance she would live, what sort of quality of life would she have at this point? So, even if she could be kept alive indefinitely, it is still her choice whether she wants that kind of life or not.
This woman is more mature and has chosen more wisely than her parents.
This is a tragic situation all around. I can understand her parents not wanting to let their Daughter go. But let's put the Grace first, it is her wishes to be taken off life support, she is 28 years old and her wishes should be fulfilled. She is the one who is suffering and she is certainly old enough to make an informed decision. There is no cure for this only long suffering, allow Grace her peace and let her go.....
It's her life and it's her decision.
I'm a cynic. I agree that the parents are primarily motivated by their desire to keep their daughter with them as long as possible. BUT if she does, as they say, "commit suicide", the parents will lose face in front of their congregation. Like I said, I'm a cynic.
Lose face. Yeah right! Put their eyes on their daughter and not on them. You are right. You are a cynic.
You are just looking at it another way, and you could be right.
To the Hermit Monk, actually among Asians there is the concept of "losing face" ....
Oh the joys of Christianity--the needless suffering only ends at death and these well meaning parents are so warped by this toxic religion that they cannot make a proper decision to allow her to end the torture sooner rather than later. No doubt they love her dearly but the parents are very misguided.
So what's new? The parents, like religious nuts everywhere, believe they have special rights because their invisible friend (god) wants them to tell others how to live and die. "My way or the highway to Hell! I am the one and only power, and all others are fakes." So sayeth the invisible lord whom they idiots worship as they torture their daughter. Disgusting!
This is why mormons go around the world uninvited and tell folks about their invisible friend. The catholics did it for centuries in the most shameful ways, and pope pole finally went to India to apologize for it. Now the muslims are on the same wavelength.
Religion is the root of all evil.
Let's call what Grace's parents are doing by its proper name: they are selfishly taking up a position of MORAL COMFORT, by placing their own psychological needs ahead of their dying daughter's autonomy and wishes. Hers position shows moral courage and responsibility-taking. Theirs, moral cowardice.
What a double edged sword the argument for religion is in this case. If modern technology is keeping this girl alive then couldn't it be argued that 'God's will' was that she where to die sooner? I feel terrible for the parents, no one wants to outlive their child. But in this instance she clearly wishes to just let go and pass on, extending her suffering is cruel and inhumane. Let her return to the God and find peace. I would want the same myself if I where in her position.
When a person wants to go, they should be able to go - we allow free speech - why not the freedom to leave when we decide?
It's called an "Advance Directive" and you can write it on forms yourself and get it notarized and no one can go against your wishes. You have a "DNR" {Do not resusitate} No breathing tubes, no paddles and no drugs except for pain meds.
Everyone should be donors and in that way, an awful death has some meaning.
@ 1devon - I share your sensibility and compassion on this issue. To add such anguish and confrontation to someone in her position is just unacceptable, no matter the feelings of family. Her wishes need to be respected above those of anyone else, including grieving family members.
As a doctor, contrary to the statement of the author of this article, I believe it is completely wise and morally correct for a patient with a terminal illness to make the decision to withhold treatment. As long as the patient has been deemed competent to make that decision there is nothing wrong with him or her deciding they don't want treatment to prolong their suffering. If I were a patient dying from cancer and was competent to decide against treatment in the event that it was just prolonging suffering, I would expect the medical team and my family to respect my decision to die with dignity.
The author is supporting this woman's right to forego treatment.
I was disagreeing with the author's statement "I don't agree that is wise to do", but now that I look at it, that statement may have been in relation to the Jehovah's Witnesses example in the preceding paragraph and not in relation to the patient in discussion.
For pete's sake. Don't these parents realize how selfish they're being?
They're making this about what they want and it's not about them!
They're not stopping to consider the anguish they're forcing their daughter to endure while this goes through the courts.
Where's their compassion? Obviously they have none.
For those who honestly and deeply believe in miracles, turn off the machines. If your loved one lives on, there's your miracle.
If not, there it is too.
Finally the courts let us keep our rights.Rest in peace.
May God bless and be with the Lee Family. Grace's parents are facing the nightmare no parent wants to deal with: They're going to bury their child. I have stage 4 cancer and my parents were told last week that there's a very strong possibility that they'll bury me. I can't even begin to describe their reaction and pain. As of now, I have made the decision that I want my life to continue should I ever end up on life support. I feel that the decision of when my life is to end is the Holy Spirit's and I don't want to put anybody in my family in the position of having to decide. If I'm brain dead, than the hospital will disconnect me. If I end up on life support, I've told my parents they don't have to come to the hospital if it's too upsetting. Nobody has to. I truly appreciate the Lee family's struggle. Right now treatment appears to be working and if I can make it to 5 years, I have a better chance of living longer. It's been 3.5 years so far. I respect the opinions of others regarding this very sensitive issue. What I will say is live each day and be grateful that you're alive today.
:)
Her parents are idiots. Please show me where in the bible it says that if you commit suicide, you go to hell? Even if it did say that, using a book of mythology to decide someone ELSES life fate is criminal. If you dont control your own body, then you dont control squat! Let her die as SHE sees fit for goodness sake!!
As a parent I know how difficult this must be for Grace's parents. I do think that Grace has the right to decide how much more medical attention she will receive. She knows her days are numbered and she is being kept alive by artificial means. If she (and we) lived just a few short years back all this technology and all of these medical procedures would not have been available to keep us alive, not for one more day.
This is a difficult situation for the family - no one wants to see their child die. No one wants the responsibility of making that kind of decision. My husband and family agrees that there are worse things that can happen to a person, to a life, than death. There is nothing wrong in allowing someone to die with dignity. It would be much harder watching Grace, or other patients like her, suffer longer.
I can't agree with the comments that the parents are 'religious nuts.' They are entitled to their faith, which they will need as they watch their daughter's life draw to a close. That said, she is entitled to make her choice as well, and while I think the parents are making a decision borne more from emotion than logic...none of us want to see our loved ones go and we want to keep them with us, even if it is selfish. My prayers go out to Grace for comfort and a soon departure of this life and a happy eternity AND to her family for the strength to accept this and come to peace with it.
This girls parents are selfish to make her linger on, just so they can get another day or two with her. If it's HER life, and she's deemed competent to make decisions for herself, then, let her go. I died last year from cardiac arrest, and had I known about DNR, I'd have GLADLY had one in my wallet. Now I do, and also a set of "dog tags" with info about it that I wear 24/7.....just in case I don't have my pants on lol
Just when I found peace, they brought me back to hell. There is no law that says you HAVE to live, so when somebody is tired of it and WANTS to die, for whatever reason, who's got the right to say "no, you can't do that!" That's beyond ridiculous. The ONLY person who should be able to make that decision is the person themselves, no one else. No one asked to be born, and no one should be forced to suffer in a life they don't want anymore. I'm there, so I know.
"If only we had Obama's death panels..."
- Sarah Palin
If God really existed - he post a video on Youtube or a simple text message on Twitter declaring his decision on this matter.
Until that happens - I offer his lack of communication as PROOF of lack of existence.....
Don't turn this into another Terri Schiavo. I would hate to see Boehner drop everything and cry for the camera's as he vows to protect her life.
hxxp://en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case