Saturday, January 11, 2014

WHEN BELIEF TRUMPS FACTS

Classmates believe 'God has the last say' on brain-dead girl Jahi McMath.  This is just incredible. The death certificate has been signed yet the child has been moved to an unidentified care facility with a vent and feeding tube installed.

Apparently she was a student at a private school, whether it's faith based or not I'm not sure but the school administration has been telling her classmates that she's not really dead and they should keep praying. A spokesman for the administration states that they're honoring the wishes of the family. What happens when the family finally admits that it's over?

Unfortunately by the time her body finally gives out, they probably won't be able to establish what went wrong after a "routine" tonsillectomy. It would be nice to know what happened did somebody screw up or was there a medical problem that the doctors didn't spot before the surgery?

Modern medicine is a mixed blessing. I was in seventh or eighth grade when our baseball team played Roseburg at Roseburg. This was before the era of batting helmets. A wild pitch hit one of the Oakridge player in the side of the head. By morning he was gone. Perhaps more modern medicine could have saved his life. Who knows. Who knows how much damage he would have had to live with if they had.

And frankly, I'm skeptical enough that anything that involves knocking me out doesn't fall under the heading of routine.

2 comments:

Lisa :-] said...

The things that modern "medicine" can do have opened up a Pandora's box of moral ambiguity with which the human race is woefully unprepared to grapple. I suppose it was just a matter of time before a family was told, "Your loved one is dead. You need to sign the papers to have him/her unplugged" and the family refused. Can't believe it hasn't happened before no. And, honestly, who am I, who is anybody, to tell this family they have to take this girl off life support? Our society/science has created this mess, now we have to figure out a way to deal with it morally and humanely.

JACKIE said...

Unfortunately life support implies there's a life to support. Brain death has been a benchmark a least a generation. This isn't a coma or persistent vegetative state. Whatever made Jahi, Jahi is gone.Time to celebrate her life, it sounds like it was a good one, however short.