Exploring life support technology and how these influences medical
decisions will vary based on the medical condition and the quality in
how beneficial the life saving support is. However, there are known
high profile cases where the subject matter of life support created
serious ethical issues causing arguable differences with great defense
on either side of the argument. One concept that is repetitive in
many scenarios is the status of an individual who is brain dead versus
legally dead.
In my research, two high profile cases were that of Jahi McMath and
Marlese Munoz. Jahi, a 13-year-old girl who suffered complications
from a complex procedure, was pronounced brain dead on December
12, 2013. Medical professionals sought to remove Jahi from life
sustaining machines; however, Jahi’s family was insistent that she
was not dead and legally took to court to have her remain on life
support. After released from the coroner’s office, Jahi was turned
over to her family to continue to keep her on machines and a feeding
tube until she developed further complications in 2018. They
debated that she was respondent to commands and demonstrated
this through video. The decision however remained that her death
date would be December 2013. The family announced her death to
their record in June 2018. After bleeding internally due to kidney and
liver failure, she was removed from life support and eventually died.
This case is extraordinary as the family was able to prolong what
they deem “life” for Jahi for an additional 4 ½ years than when she
was medically declared brain dead.
Marlese Munoz case of life being continued through life support was
the reverse in that it was the hospital that wanted to keep her on the
life saving machine as she was 14 weeks pregnant based on their
interpretation of a Texas law that required treatment of a pregnant
patient to sustain life of the unborn child. In this instance the family
sought legally to discontinue life support as Marlese was declared
brain dead in November 2013. The case ensued and the family
eventually won with Marlese being disconnected in January 2014
terminating her life.
According to Cleveland Clinic, life support replaces or supports a
failing body. “It is legally and ethically appropriate to discontinue
medical treatments that no longer are beneficial. It is the underlying
disease – not the act of withdrawing treatment – that causes death”
(Cleveland Clinic). As described by Cleveland, this is a “deeply
personal” decision; however, through proper education and the
framing of whether the prolonged treatment improves the health or
eases the pain in death of the patient should be at the forefront of
making such delicate decisions. It appears that in both cases
discussed above, there were underlying motives, whether sincerely
or not that may have missed this step in the analysis of prolonging
life support. This I feel will continue to be a bioethical condition in
medicine for the patient’s family and for their health care provider.
Resources
Wikipedia. Jahi McMath
case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahi_McMath_case
National Library of Medicine. D Alan Shewmon, Noriko Salamon.
2021. The Extraordinary Case of Jahi
McMath. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34840151/
Caleb Hellerman. Jason Morris and Matt Smith, CNN. 2014. Brain-
dead Texas woman taken off
ventilator. https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/26/health/texas-
pregnant-brain-dead-woman/index.html
Cleveland Clinic. Life Support
Measures. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/12362-
life-support-measures
