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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...

What Does It Mean to Die? When Jahi McMath was declared brain-dead by the hospital, her family disagreed. Her case challenges the very nature of existence. (New Yorker is not allowed to be posted)

This could be one of the biggest bioethics cases since Terri Schiavo. A judge has ruled that the teenager, declared dead in California, may not be dead. From the East Bay Express story: Jahi McMath, the Oakland teenager whose brain death case has sparked national debate, may not currently fit the criteria of death as defined by a state law written in conjunction with the medical establishment, a judge wrote in an order Tuesday. In his ruling, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stephen Pulido wrote that while the brain death determination in 2013 was made in accordance with medical standards,...

OAKLAND, California, December 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – 13-year-old Jahi McMath went into cardiac arrest after a routine tonsillectomy in 2013. Jahi was in oxygen-deprived cardiac arrest for two hours, causing brain damage. Though Jahi lived, her doctors said she was "brain-dead," and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland and Alameda County officials issued a death certificate.  Since Jahi has been declared "dead," insurance no longer covers her health care. Jahi's mother, Nailah Winkfield, sued Jahi's doctor, Dr. Frederick Rosen, for failing to tell her that Jahi's surgery would be "complex and risky" due to Jahi's susceptibility to heavy bleeding and for failing...

According to a media report out of New Jersey, a third doctor–the others are Shewmon and Calixto–has signed a declaration stating Jahi McMath is not brain dead. The family attorney Chris Dolan says he will petition the California Secretary of State to rescind the death certificate. From the N.J.com story: Dolan provided NJ Advance Media with signed declarations from four doctors, including Charles J. Prestigiacomo, director of Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Neurosurgery at University Hospital in Newark and chair of the neurological surgery department at Rutgers, stating that McMath isn’t brain dead.“The brain structure evidenced in the MRI is not consistent...

"Jahi McMath is ALIVE." The very first column I filed in 2014 exposed the plight of a beautiful young girl, the same age as my daughter, whom medical experts declared "brain dead" after a routine tonsillectomy gone wrong. Are you ready for the rest of the story? Doctors told Jahi's mom, Nailah Winkfield, that her child's organs would "shut down" and her brain would "liquefy" if kept on life support. Hostile hospital administrators in Oakland moved to pull the plug on Jahi. Medical officials callously referred to Jahi as "dead, dead, dead" and dismissed the child as a "body." Smug...

I accept properly diagnosed brain death as dead. Hence, when three doctors found that Jahi McMath was tragically gone, I accepted the diagnosis.But I also wrote that if her body did not deteriorate–as happens in almost all brain death cases–that would raise my eyebrows. Now, it’s one year later, and she remains here. My eyebrows are now above my receding hairline.Moreover, I am increasingly suspicious of the seeming ideological commitment of some to making sure she stays dead. The intensity of their resistance to even the possibility that a mistake has been made–or that we can learn something new about...

According to the State of California, JahiMcMath has been dead since December 9, 2013, when she went into cardiac arrest after catastrophic side effects from throat surgery. Oakland Children’s Hospital doctors insisted she was brain dead, that is, she had experienced total brain failure. Under California law, brain death is dead. When the doctors stated their intention to remove the life support from Jahi, her mother sued. A brouhaha ensued. A judge appointed an independent physician from Stanford to examine the girl, and he too found she was dead. The judge declared her dead and the state of California issued...

The mother of Jahi McMath, who three months ago was declared medically brain dead, said Thursday that her child has shown signs of life. McMath has shown a marketed spike in energy — moving in bed, turning her neck and bending at the waist while she continues to recover at an undisclosed facility, mom Nailah Winkfield said Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of people will be marching around the country today to protest the wholesale slaughter of life in the womb. Catholics and others have kept that fight alive, to good effect, for decades. But as a faith that values both faith and reason, Catholicism makes careful distinctions on other life issues as well.Most people, for instance, are not familiar with what, specifically, constitutes brain death. It is not the most pleasant of topics to ponder. And, thank God, few of us have a pressing reason to do so. But the tragic case of a 13-year-old Oakland girl, Jahi...

The lawyer for the family of Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old who has been declared brain dead, said Wednesday that doctors successfully inserted a gastric tube and tracheotomy tube into the teenager at an as yet undisclosed facility. Jahi was transferred from Oakland Children’s Hospital January 5 after a protracted legal battle between the family and the hospital which declared Jahi brain dead December 12 and sought to remove her from a ventilator. The arraignment to move Jahi was reached during a hearing Friday before Alameda Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo under which Jahi’s mother, Nailah Winkfield, could remove her daughter...

A 13-year-old California girl who was declared brain dead after suffering complications from sleep apnea surgery has been given the feeding and breathing tubes that her family had been trying to obtain for weeks. Christopher Dolan, the attorney for the girl's family, said doctors inserted the gastric tube and tracheostomy tube Wednesday at the undisclosed facility where Jahi McMath was taken Jan. 5. The procedure was a success, Dolan said, and Jahi is getting the treatment that her family believes she should have gotten 28 days ago, when doctors at Children's Hospital Oakland first declared her brain dead.

A day after winning the three-week battle to take their brain-dead daughter from Children's Hospital Oakland, the family of Jahi McMath conceded Monday they are losing the ghastly war against nature. Her body, checked in at an undisclosed care facility Monday morning, has deteriorated so badly, that "Right now, we don't know if she's going to make it," said attorney Christopher Dolan. "She's in very bad shape," he said. "What I can tell you is that those examinations show that her medical condition, separate from the brain issue, is not good." Dolan's frank and sober assessment echoes a Friday legal...

At least one in five patients declared brain dead and approved as organ donors by one organ donation organization, are in fact still alive and are being killed by the removal of vital organs, a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan alleges. The suit outlines the ghoulish worst-case scenario, one that was widely dismissed as scaremongering in the early days of the development of organ transplant technology, but which is getting a second hearing amidst growing concerns that coercion and abuse are becoming increasingly common in the highly lucrative transplant business. Patrick McMahon, a nurse practitioner and Air Force combat...

After a protracted legal battle, Children’s Hospital Oakland reached an agreement with Jahi Mcmath’s family to allow a medical team to enter the hospital to perform the procedures necessary to move her to a medical facility that will continue her care and treatment. Her mother and family say she is alive following a tonsillectomy gone awry that has left her in an incapacitated state since early December. The family in the case says the hospital has been starving Jahi for three weeks. The San Francisco Chronicle has more details: The agreement, described in the courtroom of Alameda County Superior Court...

After a protracted legal battle, Children’s Hospital Oakland reached an agreement with Jahi Mcmath’s family to allow a medical team to enter the hospital to perform the procedures necessary to move her to a medical facility that will continue her care and treatment. Her mother and family say she is alive following a tonsillectomy gone awry that has left her in an incapacitated state since early December. The family in the case says the hospital has been starving Jahi for three weeks. The San Francisco Chronicle has more details: The agreement, described in the courtroom of Alameda County Superior Court...

A view of St. Paul's Hospital. Credit: Brent Granby (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Washington D.C., Jan 4, 2014 / 06:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The “tragic” case of teenage girl Jahi McMath – now at the center of a legal controversy over brain death – shows the need to determine the facts before making ethical conclusions, says a bioethicist. “The difficulty of these cases have to be recognized, especially in terms of the human suffering of the families,” John Di Camillo of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Washington, D.C. told CNA Jan. 2. “It’s not something that's simply a clear-cut, back-and-white...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered that a 13-year-old Northern California girl declared brain dead after suffering complications following a tonsillectomy be taken off life support. But Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo gave Jahi McMath's family until 5 p.m. Dec. 30 to file an appeal. She will stay on life support until then. Grillo issued the order after a Stanford doctor testified that Jahi is brain dead. Dr. Paul Graham Fisher's evaluation was the second to reach that conclusion. Children's Hospital of Oakland, where Jahi is hospitalized, has asked that the girl be taken off...

<p>The agreement, described in the Oakland courtroom of Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo, is the latest development in an unusual battle between the hospital and the girl's family, who has rejected declarations that Jahi is dead as a result of brain death.</p>

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A California hospital is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit a 13-year-old declared brain dead after tonsil surgery with the breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be safely transferred to another facility, its lawyer said Tuesday. Children's Hospital Oakland will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi McMath is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl's family. "Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something...