Jahi -- Girl in the Gap

by Catherine Ramey, Guest Blogger

Latest reports on this 13-year-old child are that she moves (mother's testimony) and remains alive (as opposed to being a corpse forcibly maintained on machinery).
 
But whether Jahi is truly dead or alive, people should know that in the U.S. there are over 50 definitions of "brain death." Most are construed to be useful in appropriating organ donations. T his is important to the harvesting industry because fresher organs have less chance of failure in the new "host."  (Sounds a bit like cannibalism and taking in the blood of another for the new patient's personal gain, to some ethicists, but these are not the "Caplin" or "Singer" types that get quoted in the news.) 
 
Healthier organs increase transplant success rates and bring in a lot of money to hospitals and surgeons involved in the transplant. 
 
There have been several cases reported over the years that indicate "life support" was pulled for the patient and they were used as a donor in a situation the autopsy physician later determined was entirely survivable; the moment of death was really and truly at that point when the heart or other vital organs (lungs) were removed. 
 
In organ donation, the machinery to support life is not actually "turned off."  That would place organs at greater risk of failure. The patient's chart, under their own name is closed with a time of death. 

A new chart has already been set up and is opened immediately, so the patient who was someone's son or daughter, father or mother, aunt, or best friend a moment before, becomes a "Jane Doe," or "John Doe."  That new chart, along with necessary life support machinery and various medications (organ preserving; not necessarily life sustaining, which are started well before the "death" of the individual patient is charted in the original chart)  are now tracked under the name "Doe."   These go with the "Doe" patient and the surgical team into the surgery where organs and tissues are then "harvested."  
 
Why a new chart? Doctor's are prohibited from treating a patient unless it is to that patient's benefit. They can justify (in their medical worldview) the drugs that preserve organs by arguing the patient might gain some supportive benefit from such drugs, at least temporarily.  (Long term, these drugs or supplements can have a very toxic influence on the body.) 
 
But to "harvest" organs is never a benign procedure and requires the personal authorization of the patient or advocates like family, lawyer, medical POA, etc. 

Patient A can agree to donate a kidney, part of a lung, or skin for the benefit of another compatible patient B, but they cannot rightly give permission to have their life ended (active euthanasia) by organ donation; hence the conflict over prisoners donating organs when they are under a death sentence. 

Therefore, the "patient" who is "harvested" must be different from the patient whose chart was closed as "deceased."
 
Anyone who is going into a hospital, or who suffers from traumatic or chronic illnesses should have a strong advocate in place. It would be nice if we could all trust the medical industry, but the stark reality is that we simply cannot! In spite of the "Marcus Welby, M.D." and "House" representations where doctors bend over backwards and take enormous personal risks to give good care for the benefit of the patient (and not the benefit of their wallets, other transplant patients or the hospital budget), all those who work in "medicine," as with every industry, have good and bad actors.  When money is connected with an outcome, many fall into temptation.  A strong advocate is all the more necessary because a "simple" surgery or a "short" hospital treatment can sometimes turn into a disaster.  Never take for granted that the medical team, or select medical individuals who make critical decisions on your behalf are looking toward only your best interest and to preserve your life. 
 
Are you a cynical person who believes "If three doctors all say a person is 'dead,' they must be dead because most doctors can be trusted? 

There are over a million babies who die quite definitively each year while under the control of a "trusted physician-surgeon."  The moment of death comes as their bodies are pulled apart, cut to pieces, or violated with surgical instruments to the heart or brain, and not because of the child's own failure to be alive and growing. Surgical abortionists kill between 1.1 to 1.4 million Unborn babies each year in the U.S. for their own personal profit, and that of the co-conspiring mother and other entities involved.  Another untold million or more are killed through abortifacient drugs. 
 
With so many doctors and other medical personnel willing to justify active killing for financial gain in just one class of persons (the preborn), why do you think all the doctors who treat you over the years can be trusted to do all they can to spare your life? 
 
I do not know enough about Jahi's personal medical situation, but I know enough to be cynical towards an over-abundance of blind trust in people who are called "experts" only by virtue of a degree and without any resort to character or personal values which always have a play-out in "professional ethics," and their financial integrity. 
 
Jahi's parents are in a position that most of us never want to experience, though some have. We must continue to pray with them that GOD override all motivations to this child's harm. I pray she recovers or that GOD gives these parents the supernatural ability to allow Him to take her home according to His clock. The most unnatural thing for any parent is to cheaply value a child and discard them easily.  Yet in this age, we see parents do that every day. Let's affirm the love Jahi's parents are demonstrating in demanding every proof of death possible for the eternal gift GOD has given them in a child. All else they invest in will one day burn, but if they are faithful, they have the hope that GOD will use them to compel their children to salvation in Jesus Christ.

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Note from CJ, Social Media, Survivors:

 A leading pediatrician in the nation, Dr. Byrne, has weighed in definitively to say that Jahi's is not brain-dead.  You can continue to help Jahi and her family by 1) Praying!, and 2) Donating to help her family through http://www.gofundme.com/Jahi-Mcmath.  She will need to be transferred to a facility in New York after a trach is performed.