Jahi McMath and the bodies of children

Jahi McMath is dead. Or, Jahi McMath is alive. Each statement is true—depending upon the person you ask. Thirteen-year-old Jahi had complications after surgery in Oakland, California. Doctors later pronounced her brain dead; there was no brain activity. Yet to her family, she remains alive. They went to court, and reached an agreement that they could keep her on a ventilator and move her out of the hospital.

In the wake of these events, theologians, doctors, ethicists, scientists and others have taken up their positions in another cultural battle. Commenters on a CNN piece—about the girl’s reported improvement after being transferred to an anonymous health care facility that was willing to care for her—sarcastically attacked the family for believing that their child could recover. Several news organizations—such as the Los Angeles Times—have reported that the family is waiting on a miracle from God to bring about healing.

Age-old discussions are resurfacing. Some are presenting the situation as science vs. religion, although this distinction is not clear. Some Catholic ethicists and priests have argued that the consensus of doctors—that there are no signs of life—should carry the day. Others have referred to the case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman whose case came to national attention because of the battle between her family members over her quality of life. Schiavo, however, was in a vegetative state and was not declared dead by medical personnel. Included in all of this are the philosophical and theological questions of who we are as human beings, what consciousness is and what constitutes life and death.