Posted on 06/29/2018 1:05:26 AM PDT by Morgana
FULL TITLE: Jahi McMath, the teen declared brain dead by doctors in 2013, has died undergoing surgery in New Jersey after a five-year bitter legal fight by her mother who insisted medics were wrong and she was still alive
A girl at the center of the medical and religious debate over brain death has died after surgery in New Jersey, her mother said Thursday.
Nailah Winkfield said doctors declared her daughter Jahi McMath dead on June 22 from excessive bleeding and liver failure after an operation to treat an intestinal issue.
McMath was declared dead in December 2013 when she was 13 after suffering irreversible brain damage during routine surgery in California to remove her tonsils and a coroner signed a death certificate. Several specialists concurred after neurological tests.
Winkfield refused to accept the conclusion. She said her Christian beliefs compelled her to fight for continued care for her daughter, who she said showed signs of life through toe wriggles and finger movements.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Please read #40. This wasn’t a simple procedure and apparently the family harmed her after surgery.
Most peoples greatest fear is not death but precisely what happened to this child for many years.
...
You’ve got that right. At least she wasn’t conscious.
Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
What the heck are you sputtering about?
God’s plan was “obviously” for this woman to fight for her child’s life with everything she had, but even that has less than nothing to do with what you posted.
You’re a bit thin-skinned, aren’t you?
I'm not sure I can articulate the difference --- anyone who can, should jump in and explain better.
I'll try. It's because every person alive needs food and water "with assistance" so to speak, whether that assistance means, cooking, suckling an infant, spoon-feeding, straw-feeding, tube-feeding, hydration via IV. Another way to put it is, all food is both an absolute survival requirement and a "human solidarity activity" and all intentional cessation of food/fluids will cause death by starvation/dehydration.
That's why denying food with the intention of causing or speeding-up death, is wrong. Even for a dying or severely disabled person, food is not "treatment", even if it's by tube. It's "ordinary care."
(Only exception of a dying person simply can't tolerate food/fluids anymore.) OTOH, even though respiration is also essential for survival, it is not inherently an "assisted activity." If a person can't breathe on their own, a ventilator is always a special intervention. If the person is in such a state that it's futile, removing it is not murder.
It could get more dicey in individual cases, but I think there really is a distinction between "assisted feeding" and "assisted breathing."
Does that make sense?
(Only exception IS IF a dying person simply can't tolerate food/fluids anymore.)
Does that make sense?
Thank you, dear Mrs. Don-o. Makes not only total sense, but perfect sense.
People like you --- with actual experience, training, information, even taking the time to wiki it--- are why FR is still a worthwhile place to go to. Valuable to me, anyhow, realizing how much I have to learn.
Indeed- I thought the complications way too complex for a routine T-ectomy. So, it seems that the family’s actions caused the whole thing to spiral out of control. My apologies to the hospitalists- they should have kicked the family out sooner ( but that would be bad press).
The child suffered from airway issues, had several complex surgeries and the family stuffs in a burger? Then the Grandma proceeds to perform medical tasks? Wow. I never followed it too closely back then, but this does bring to light who really caused the child’s demise- it wasn’t the doctors etc.
Indeed- I thought the complications way too complex for a routine T-ectomy. So, it seems that the family’s actions caused the whole thing to spiral out of control. My apologies to the hospitalists- they should have kicked the family out sooner ( but that would be bad press).
The child suffered from airway issues, had several complex surgeries and the family stuffs in a burger? Then the Grandma proceeds to perform medical tasks? Wow. I never followed it too closely back then, but this does bring to light who really caused the child’s demise- it wasn’t the doctors etc.
“Your tax dollars paid for the costs of keeping this child on machines. She never breathed on her own”
It was a chance! Tax dollars well spent and I’m not complaining! How bout tax dollars spent keeping junkies alive who go back on the streets and get high again and we got to go and narcan them again???? Dammit she had 5 years to try to come out of this! So do come out of a coma after 20 years
Good point about the junkies.
If we only knew how much money these drug addicts are really costing our healthcare system...
“McMath was declared dead in December 2013 when she was 13 after suffering irreversible brain damage during routine surgery in California to remove her tonsils and a coroner signed a death certificate.
...
Ive seen a comment saying it was more than a simple tonsil removal. I wonder if thats true.”
I met her Ma here in Charleston, W. Va. at a pro life conference. YES IT IS.
I heard the whole story. The vultures were swarming over Jahi’s body for the organs in california. This mom fought like a Lioness to get her daughter out of that state.
Others have died while we have had to tend to these junkies!! Not saying their life does not matter. Oh yea we need more treatment facilities. Just saying at some point they don’t give a shit about their own life.
This little girl deserved a chance at life! She was a child! She was 13 when it happened! She was not an adult on the street shooting up for kicks.
I think the mom should have let her go naturally...
God's plan is we are born, we live, we die...
bad outcomes do not mean there was any malice, nor negligance....actually IIRC, very few medical lawsuits are successful.
Don’t try to play cutesy games.
The point remains.
“Removing a ventilator is not euthanasia. “
It is if the person cannot breathe on their own.
And as I said in response to post 5, plenty of comatose people can’t breathe on their own either.
So if I understand what you have quoted from Wiki, what this girl’s family did for and to her post-surgery was largely the cause of her distress and ultimate demise in 2013. Most of which is, for blacks in Oakland, pretty much a cultural thing.
In my opinion, what was done to McMath by her family was not unlike an “honor killing” as practiced by that religion of piece (spelling intentional).
Allowing someone to die a natural death is not euthanasia. Many people choose not to have life artificially prolonged in the event of catastrophic illness. Just because we can do something doesnt always mean we should. Artificial ventilation in the setting of an acute illness that one will
Presumably recover from is a great advance. In the setting of terminal illness or chronic disease that has no chance of recovery it can be a curse. But it is not euthanasia to withdraw artificial support. Euthanasia is the active taking of a life.
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