A state judge yesterday signed off on an agreement that ends a legal dispute between a terminally ill woman and her parents. Attorneys for Sungeun Grace Lee, 28, and her parents told Nassau Supreme Court Justice Thomas Phelan (See Profile) that the woman had agreed to designate her father as her health proxy should she become incapacitated and unable to make health decisions for herself. The woman is currently deemed competent, and any decision about when she becomes incapacitated would be made by her doctors, attorneys said.
Lee, a New York City financial executive, was found to have a tumor on her brain stem last November and was hospitalized last month after suffering a seizure. Her doctors at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island have said the woman, who is now paralyzed from the neck down, is terminally ill. She had expressed a desire to be taken off a ventilator that is helping to keep her alive, a decision her parents, who are devout Christians, opposed. Man Ho Lee, pastor of Antioch Missionary Church in Queens, and his wife, Jin Ah Lee, sought a court order blocking doctors from removing her from a respirator. They had argued that their daughter’s wishes were tantamount to committing suicide.
