Posted on 10/05/2012 10:40:40 AM PDT by Joseph Harrolds
Doctors at Long Island’s North Shore Hospital say Grace Sung Eun Lee is competent and made her wishes clear. Woman's parents say removing her from life support would be suicide and condemn her to hell
She is paralyzed from the neck down, tethered to breathing and feeding tubes — but Manhattan bank manager Grace Sung Eun Lee still managed to mouth four words Wednesday.
“I want to die.”
Doctors are trying to honor Lee’s wish, but her devout parents believe that removing the tubes is suicide — a sin that would condemn the 28-year-old to hell.
They’ve gone to court to keep the terminally ill brain-cancer patient on life supprt, turning a heartbreaking family tragedy into a right-to-die legal battle.
The case has put medical ethics and religion on a collision course, with lawyers arguing in two courtrooms while the patient at the center of the fight can do little more than blink her eyes.
“The thought of her dying, my heart tremors, everything goes black,” Grace’s father, prominent Queens pastor the Rev. Manho Lee, pleaded to a judge.
Her mother, Jin-ah Lee, does not believe her always dutiful daughter has given up on life — or that her death is inevitable.
(more at link)
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Today’s tools interferes with putting yourself in God’s arms. Difficult times.
She is very depressed and my heart goes out to her.
She has a civil right “to die,” but -
she does not have the right to make other people kill her.
Removing the feeding tube isn’t suicide it’s letting nature take its course.
Very tragic. I don’t think this young woman or her parents were familiar with the very ancient Christian tradition of “offering it up,” that is, joining your sufferings with those of Christ in the redemption of the world.
In the modern world, suffering has no value, so people who suffer are focused on themselves. But if they offer it up, oddly enough, their suffering decreases, possibly because they know that even in their passivity (the Latin root word for passivity is the same as that for suffering) they are doing something of great benefit.
Christ suffered to redeem us, and if we believe, we are part of the Body of Christ and we can unite our suffering with His on the Cross.
and extraordinary measures to force one to live is equally immoral
“Right to die”....death panels...all part of the same scheme.
Really tragic story. I struggle to believe that whatever decision this poor suffering woman and/or her parents make, in the extremity of their distress, that God is going to condemn her to hell on that account. My own feelings, for the little they are worth, are that in a case like this it is intentions which count for most.
I believe you’re right.
I know someone dying of ALS who has refused any kind of feeding tube or artificial life support. He certainly isn’t committing suicide.
By that reasoning, so is ballistic craniectomy, artificial asphyxiation, and ground impedance of sufficient altitude momentum.
Yes, removal of feeding tubes is suicide/murder (depending on who withdraws the tubes or contents thereof).
Seems that the tumor is going to take her life regardless very soon. She is already in hospice care. Watching my father die of cancer was devestating. He lasted less then 5 weeks after he started morphine and was only on ativan for a few days before he died. He didnt eat that last week either so perhaps there is no need for her to be on the feeding tube. At the end of life nutrition is not needed. The body rejects it. 3 days before he died the morphine had him in a coma.
Terribly sad :( Prayers to this family.
As per the story: “She is very tearful when she thinks about dying, but she consistently asks that the breathing tube be removed and she begs us to do that,” Dr. Dana Lustbader, chief of palliative medicine at North Shore, testified at an emergency hearing last week.
Grace Lee during happier times:
Stories like this make me want to cry.
BTW his wife at the time, my ex step mother was korean and she did inquire about feeding tube at which time hospice staff finally was firm with her in that he only had a few days to life. She had a very hard time accepting that he was dying so perhaps these parents are in similar situation due to their culture. I had a hard time also but knew he was dying so was able to process that no matter how painful.
“and extraordinary measures to force one to live is equally immoral”
The measures are now in place. She could have refused to have them put into place. But now that they are there, she now wants one or more people to remove them. That is immoral. It puts her death squarely upon their shoulders, and that is wrong.
“Yes, removal of feeding tubes is suicide/murder”
Refusing to remove the tubes is literally torture.
“Is she asking someone to kill her, or is she just asking to be allowed to die her natural death?”
I say if she refused the tubes, she’d just be allowing herself to die.
But if she asked for them to be removed, she asking someone to kill her.
She is on a breathing tube. If she refuses this, is it any different than a DNR order?
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/court-rules-grace-lee-die-upheld-article-1.1175910
Grace Sung Eun Lee’s wish has been granted.
A state appeals court ruled Friday in favor of the terminally ill Manhattan banker who has been locked in a legal battle with her parents over her decision to be taken off life support.
The 28-year-old Lee — who on Wednesday told the Daily News, “I want to die” — has been on life support since last month, unable to eat or breathe on her own.
The ruling clears the way for doctors at Long Island’s North Shore Hospital to disconnect Lee, who has an inoperable brain tumor. But it remains unclear whether her devout parents, who believe she’ll go to hell if she pulls the plug, will give up their legal fight.
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