# Parents of Jahi McMath (brain dead child) allowed to take daughter out of hospital **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 3, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833 "2014-01-03T22:43:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/241 "2016-02-22T10:24:04Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > [That’s what her mother claimed](https://www.facebook.com/keepJahiMcmathonlifesupport/photos/a.167241473484813.1073741828.166781143530846/413713925504232/?type=3&theater/) – although I have my doubts, considering [the way her hands look](https://www.facebook.com/TeamJahiAFamilyInDenial/photos/a.1445130052372411.1073741828.1445022402383176/1505670429651706/?type=3&theater). Can any living human possibly get their hands in that type of position? Yes. Looks like a combo of tendon contraction with muscle atrophy. I’m not saying her hands are _normal_, just that such deformity can occur in a living person. Honestly, I’ve seen far, far worse distortion in alive, conscious human beings. [Advanced rheumatoid arthritis](http://d3rv9uz0igccmf.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/RA-hands-1.jpg), for example, can cause much worse distortion, and that example isn’t even the worst it can do. Paralysis, such as after a stroke, can also cause deformity: here’s an example of [Volkman’s contracture](http://www.unboundedmedicine.com/wp-content/Volkman.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/242 "2016-02-22T12:43:48Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > There are a few other cases of long-term maintenance; [Alan Shewmon](http://jacek.norkowski.info/files/1538%5B1%5D.pdf) found “approximately 161 documented survivals of at least 1 week, approximately 67 at least 2 weeks, approximately 32 at least 4 weeks, approximately 15 at least 2 months, and 7 at least 6 months.” (Shewmon has argued against the very definition or concept of brain death, hence use of the word ‘survivals.’) All of the cases that lasted long-term were children, most of them very young. Wow, so we may have another example of a very rare phenomenon that’s been observed in other brain dead children. This could go on a very, very long time. And it really doesn’t answer the question of whether she’s brain dead or not. Children’s bodies really are (sometimes) more resilient than adults, even in death. One wonders if these bodies might be useful for research. How are they getting nutrition without intestinal linings? Or is their intestinal lining grown back? If so, can we figure out how and turn that into an ulcerative colitis treatment? That would be just one of many things I’d like to explore. But, even were she still at a hospital, it sure doesn’t sound like her mother would allow her daughter’s body to be used for research. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/243 "2016-02-22T14:33:08Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > One wonders if these bodies might be useful for research. How are they getting nutrition without intestinal linings? Or is their intestinal lining grown back? If so, can we figure out how and turn that into an ulcerative colitis treatment? That would be just one of many things I’d like to explore. But, even were she still at a hospital, it sure doesn’t sound like her mother would allow her daughter’s body to be used for research. Well, going around talking about how it’s a shame we can’t use her body for research certainly wouldn’t convince her mother either. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/244 "2016-02-22T16:09:17Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Well, going around talking about how it’s a shame we can’t use her body for research certainly wouldn’t convince her mother either. Do you really think she’s convinceable, at this point? If she ever was? Certainly, if I was tasked with talking to her two years ago, I wouldn’t take that blunt tack. I’d talk about how dreadfully sorry I was that this happened, and that her daughter had an opportunity to give a great gift to suffering people by increasing medical knowledge. Or however it is that transplant teams talk to families about organ donation. I don’t know, I don’t do that work. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/245 "2016-02-22T16:32:00Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Do you really think she’s convinceable, at this point? If she ever was? > > Certainly, if I was tasked with talking to her two years ago, I wouldn’t take that blunt tack. I’d talk about how dreadfully sorry I was that this happened, and that her daughter had an opportunity to give a great gift to suffering people by increasing medical knowledge. Or however it is that transplant teams talk to families about organ donation. I don’t know, I don’t do that work. I know. I was just saying. I found it a little strange and disconcerting that you would even say it here though. Really? ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/246 "2016-02-22T16:43:33Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Wow, so we may have another example of a very rare phenomenon that’s been observed in other brain dead children. This could go on a very, very long time. And it really doesn’t answer the question of whether she’s brain dead or not. Children’s bodies really are (sometimes) more resilient than adults, even in death. I’m not sure if it is that kids might be more resilient, or just that hospitals are more reluctant to turn off the machines where kids are concerned. In the case of T.K., for example, he was not formally diagnosed as brain dead because at the time there were no approved standards for diagnosing brain death in children under the age of five, and he was four. ([cite](https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/pcbe/transcripts/nov07/session5.html)) Within two days of his first hospitalization, the doctors had concluded he had no brain activity, but the hospital had no legal basis to declare him dead and his family didn’t want him removed from life support. > [@WhyNot](#): > > One wonders if these bodies might be useful for research. How are they getting nutrition without intestinal linings? Or is their intestinal lining grown back? If so, can we figure out how and turn that into an ulcerative colitis treatment? That would be just one of many things I’d like to explore. But, even were she still at a hospital, it sure doesn’t sound like her mother would allow her daughter’s body to be used for research. T.K.'s intestinal lining never died; he (or whatever remained of him) was fed through a gastric tube. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/247 "2016-02-22T17:29:06Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > I know. I was just saying. I found it a little strange and disconcerting that you would even say it here though. Really? “Occasionally, I’m callous and strange.” ~ Willow Rosenberg ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/248 "2016-02-22T18:47:21Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Yes, “T.K.” was the case to which I referred. (Sorry, I was remembering 14 years; it was really over 20.) > > An [article](https://hods.org/pdf/Long%20Survival%20Following%20Baterial%20Meningits-Associated%20Brain%20Destruction1.pdf) about him, including details and photos of his brain autopsy, was published in the Journal of Child Neurology. He was four years old when meningitis destroyed his brain; over the following two decades he grew some (104 cm and 70 kg at autopsy) and developed a few secondary sexual characteristics, although obviously did not develop normally. His limbs would respond to tactile stimulus, and sometimes he made apparently random and spontaneous movements, particularly of his legs. His mother kept him in a small apartment in her basement for much of that twenty years. His brain was GONE: “Subsequent autopsy revealed a calcified intracranial spherical structure weighing 750 g and consisting of a calcified shell containing grumous material and cystic spaces with no recognizable neural elements grossly or microscopically.” > > There are a few other cases of long-term maintenance; [Alan Shewmon](http://jacek.norkowski.info/files/1538%5B1%5D.pdf) found “approximately 161 documented survivals of at least 1 week, approximately 67 at least 2 weeks, approximately 32 at least 4 weeks, approximately 15 at least 2 months, and 7 at least 6 months.” (Shewmon has argued against the very definition or concept of brain death, hence use of the word ‘survivals.’) All of the cases that lasted long-term were children, most of them very young. > > Usually, medical personnel don’t even try long-term maintenance, so I’m not sure anybody has any meaningful statistics on how long is typical, or even possible. (T.K. was finally declared dead only because his mother gave up and decided no further attempts at resuscitation would be taken the next time he went into cardiac arrest.) Most often, after the diagnosis is made and confirmed, the hospital gives the family a few days to come to terms and then the machines are turned off. Thank you for this information, which is all new to me. When this thread was first made, various posters said things to the effect that “Jahi’s body will probably start decaying fairly quickly, and nothing can be done about it.” But maybe she is brain dead, and they just got lucky in being able to maintain her body in a reasonably-healthy looking state. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/249 "2016-02-22T19:06:32Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > I know. I was just saying. I found it a little strange and disconcerting that you would even say it here though. Really? Even more so than the real-life reenactment of Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” going on in this case? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/250 "2016-02-22T19:17:06Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > I know. I was just saying. I found it a little strange and disconcerting that you would even say it here though. Really? To be fair, I felt a little strange and disconcerting writing it, rewrote it a few times to try to make it more gentle, then hit the “Fuckit” and “Submit” buttons simultaneously. I don’t expect every grieving parent to be interested in medical research. But _I’m_ interested in medical research. Without someone allowing their body to be used for medical research, many someones in fact, we wouldn’t have done the research into the ventilators and feeding tubes and adhesive eye patches they’re using to keep this girl’s body going. So yes, I do think it’s a shame that, if they’re going to the expense and trouble of keeping this body going indefinitely, it’s not benefiting anyone at all. It’s not benefiting the girl. It’s keeping her mother away from her sisters, so it’s not benefiting the family\*. It’s not even benefiting future ventilated patients by helping doctors figure out why her body is able to keep from decomposing. I do think that’s a shame, yes. \*Except that I notice at least one GoFundMe in their name is still going. I would venture to guess that may be a motivating factor in keeping the illusion of life intact, but that would _definitely_ be strange and disconcerting. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/251 "2016-02-22T20:36:18Z")
For some reason this thread makes me think of [Kentucky Fried Movie’s United Appeal for the Dead.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Occg29DsI7k) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/252 "2016-02-23T14:00:58Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > One wonders if these bodies might be useful for research. How are they getting nutrition without intestinal linings? If they’re being fed intravenously, is the intestinal lining needed? My mother was in the hospital for three months last year due to an intestinal issue and, while she got most of her nutrition intravenously, she was told to eat at least a little or drink “drinks that have some actual nutrients” (OJ or a bit of vitamin-aA cocktail for example) “in order to help prevent loss of intestinal function”. I’m not sure what intestinal functions were the doctors worried about, if it was peristaltic motions or something else. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/253 "2016-02-23T14:13:04Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > If they’re being fed intravenously, is the intestinal lining needed? My mother was in the hospital for three months last year due to an intestinal issue and, while she got most of her nutrition intravenously, she was told to eat at least a little or drink “drinks that have some actual nutrients” (OJ or a bit of vitamin-aA cocktail for example) “in order to help prevent loss of intestinal function”. I’m not sure what intestinal functions were the doctors worried about, if it was peristaltic motions or something else. No, if they’re being fed exclusively _intravenously_, they don’t need an intestinal lining. But the fuss when the hospital refused to do two procedures so she could be transferred were for a trach and a feeding tube - a tube that goes into the stomach (or maybe small intestine) through the nose, mouth or abdominal wall. For feeding tube feedings, you need working intestines. Before her body left the hospital, there were reports that she was sloughing the intestinal lining and it was leaking out her anus. Eventually, she got her trach and feeding tube. The latest updates I’ve found from her mother still refer to a feeding tube, but it’s certainly possible they’re giving her IV (parenteral) nutrition and not telling anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/254 "2016-02-24T05:07:59Z")
Keeping a truly brain-dead person’s body alive may be macabre, expensive, and hard on the loved ones, but you know what’s worse? Killing a child who has a chance of survival. There have been too many cases of ‘brain dead’ people or people in long-term vegetative states suddenly waking up. It makes me wonder if we really understand what’s going on in the brain at a very deep neurological or biological level. Examples: [Woman wakes up just before organs were to be harvested](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-wakes-organs-harvested-article-1.1393821) > [@](#): > > Signs that Colleen S. Burns was still alive went ignored by doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center. The hospital was later fined $22,000 by the New York Department of Health over this and another incident of improper procedure. > > Doctors at a Syracuse hospital came within inches of harvesting the organs of a live woman who woke on the operating table, despite previous reports by nurses indicating she was alive. > > Doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center mistakenly ruled that Colleen S. Burns, 41, had suffered a cardiac death in October 2009, according to records published Sunday by the Syracuse Post-Standard behind a $22,000 fine issued by the state department of health. > > The mother of three from North Syracuse had overdosed on Xanax, Benadryl and a muscle relaxant but had not died, only slipped into a deep coma, it would later be revealed. > > She was mistakenly declared brain dead by hospital staff, with the tragic news presented to Burns’ family who gave doctors permission to take her off life support and harvest her organs. > > According to hospital records, one day before Burns’ organs were to be removed, a nurse noticed something eerie about the patient, a sign someone without a medical degree may even jump to see. > > Her toes curled from the simple reflex test of running a finger along her foot. > > An investigation by the Health Department determined this and several other signs to come were shockingly ignored by doctors. Multiple signs of brain activity were seen, including her lips and tongue moving while she was on the operating table being prepped to have her organs removed. She only survived because she actually opened her eyes as they were about to cut into her. She was discharged two weeks later and made a full recovery. Then there’s this recent report: [Uber shooting victim, 14, was declared dead and having her body prepared for organ donation when she squeezed her mother’s hand](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3458737/How-Kalamazoo-shooting-victim-14-having-body-prepared-organ-harvest-suddenly-grabbed-mother-s-hand-hospital-bed.html) The doctors told the family she was brain dead. They signed the consent form to have her organs harvested, and two hours later as she was being prepped for the OR she squeezed her mother’s hand. She can now apparently respond to a request for a thumbs-up by giving one, but there’s no telling how much brain damage she suffered. However, she’s clearly not brain dead. Steven Thorpe was declared brain dead by four different specialists, and only after the family ignored repeated demands to shut off the life support system, refused to sign the organ donation forms and kept insisting they saw movement that another neurologist was brought in - and found faint signs of brain activity. The kid woke up two weeks later and is well functioning today. Suzanne Chin was declared brain dead (brain stem death), and again the family refused the doctors repeated suggestions that she be removed from life support. A second neurologist was consulted, who also declared her brain dead. Three days later there signs of some kind of response to stimuli, and within a week she was back home and is now fully recovered. Zack Dunlap suffered severe brain trauma in an accident. At the hospital he was totally non-responsive. After 36 hours of total lack of response a PET scan was ordered, and it showed that there was no blood flow to his brain at all, and he was declared brain dead. His body was kept alive for four hours while a transplant team could be flown in, and as they were prepping him for surgery he suddenly showed signs of life. The doctors then said he would probably have massive brain damage and might never recover anyway. He was sent to a rehab facility, and made rapid improvement. 48 days later he walked out and went back to a normal life. Now, I don’t believe that these people were truly brain dead - there must have been some activity in there, some blood flow to keep tissues alive. But it seems to me that current medical opinion may have underestimated the brain’s ability to recover starting from a position of low activity that gets missed on standard tests for brain death. Or maybe all these doctors are quacks, but when four neurologists agree with a diagnosis of brain death and the patient recovers anyway, perhaps we need to consider if we understand this stuff as well as we think we do, and perhaps should be a little more careful before calling the organ removal team. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/255 "2016-02-24T05:53:45Z")
The [doctors](http://abc7chicago.com/news/kalamazoo-shooting-how-a-14-year-old-michigan-victim-clung-to-life/1212224/) are being quoted as saying the Uber shooting victim was never declared brain-dead in the first place. The hospital had discussed the possibility of organ donation with the family in light of the fact that she was very grievously wounded and her heart had stopped at least once, but they were still running tests on her. Moreover, I can’t find any reports where any member of her family said she was brain-dead either. All of the articles saying she was brain-dead are quoting “unnamed sources” or “sources close to the situation” or something similar. See, that’s a problem with a lot of the reporting. Most people, including most reporters, don’t know the difference between coma and vegetative state and brain-dead anyway, so facts get twisted not because anybody is malicious but because these things are complicated. Even in the case of Steven Thorpe, the reporting (the actual reporting, not the opinion pieces) doesn’t make clear whether the doctors said he _was_ brain-dead or _might be_ brain-dead, and there’s a pretty huge gap between those statements. You can read different news articles and find quite remarkable differences in what supposedly happened and what the doctors are supposed to have said. The hospital’s own statement doesn’t mention any declaration of death and says only that “several CT scans of the head showed almost irreversible damage … However, critical care and other specialist teams continued to support his systems through his critical period.” ---
**Author:** ![KAndre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@KAndre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KAndre)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2018, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/256 "2018-03-29T15:13:19Z")
I don’t like bumping…damn, “zombie” is so wrong in this… old threads, but this one seems to be the definitive one on this. I saw that the first item on the 2018 Annual Bioethics Conference schedule is a discussion on the McMath case, did a search find out what happens to her, and came across this [New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/what-does-it-mean-to-die) article. It bothered me on so many levels the comment that the mother made that if the medical professionals had shown some compassion it might gone differently. I’m aware the variance in the way patients feel they are being treated and how medical staff think they are treating people. It really doesn’t seem like the girl is a “corpse” the way some said she would begin to decompose within months; but it doesn’t feel the same as Terry Schiavo. It will be interesting to see comments from the Bioethics Conference and if it has any impact on the ongoing case. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2018, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/257 "2018-03-29T16:33:14Z")
Huh. I thought the bump was to report she was finally completely dead. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2018, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/258 "2018-03-29T16:38:49Z")
I subscribe to The New Yorker, so I read that article when it came out, and I have to say it was an eye-opener. According to that article, the whole idea of brain death has always been very controversial, and even today is not fully accepted. Nor is the precise definition of brain death well understood. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2018, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/259 "2018-03-29T17:54:06Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > [Jahi McMath, Brain Dead Teen, Can Be Moved from Oakland Children's Hospital | TIME.com](http://nation.time.com/2014/01/03/jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-oakland-can-be-moved/) > > [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Hospital-agrees-to-let-Jahi-McMath-family-take-5111584.php](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Hospital-agrees-to-let-Jahi-McMath-family-take-5111584.php) > > Searched but saw no thread on this already. > > It appears that the media has tried to make this some sort of controversial Terry Schiavo story. > > If you haven’t heard, Jahi McMath, a 13 year old girl, while undergoing a routine tonsillectomy suffered a traumatic hemmorage and cardiac arrest and is technically brain dead, according to the hospital where her body is currently being kept alive via a ventilator. > > The hospital considers her to be dead and were scheduled to terminate the life support earlier this week, but a judge granted the family a stay of a week to give the family time to seek alternatives. > > The above referenced articles seems to declare the family has won an order to allow them to take Jahi’s body to another facility. But the hospital has offered that solution since the beginning. They just don’t want to be the facility to be the one keeping her body alive, along with all the liability that goes with it. > > I highly doubt this family can afford the care that will be needed to keep their daughter’s body alive. I know that I couldn’t, and probably 99% of American’s couldn’t either. > > It is obvious that the parents are still in grief and appear to be stuck in the “denial” phase. But is there really a valid debate here as to whether a hospital should be forced to keep treating a brain dead patient? I haven’t read the story but it sounds like the liability they incurred from the “routine tonsillectomy” that resulted in a brain dead child, is already theirs. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2018, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833/260 "2018-03-30T01:16:42Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > I subscribe to The New Yorker, so I read that article when it came out, and I have to say it was an eye-opener. According to that article, the whole idea of brain death has always been very controversial, and even today is not fully accepted. Nor is the precise definition of brain death well understood. I had the same reaction, and I was one of those people that believed that the chemical balances required to sustain cellular life would fail and she would start decomposing. But seven months after her “death” she started having menstrual periods. According to the article that is suggestive of a functioning hypothalamus. Now I’m not convinced that there is any cognitive function or awareness there ( her parents would disagree ). But it puts her in sort of a weird legal position - as far as California is concerned she’s legally dead, a corpse. But some of her expenses are covered by Medicaid, because the laws regarding brain death are different in New York and New Jersey. And shortly after the family moved into a rental with Jahi, the police responded to an anonymous tip that “there was a dead body in the house”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-of-jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-child-allowed-to-take-daughter-out-of-hospital/677833.md?page=14)