Where do you draw the line between respecting an individual's religion and making more ethical choices that contradict it? Despite best intentions people's religious views might be against what is best for a patient.

In December of 2013, Jahi McMath went to the University of California in San Francisco to get some tissues in her throat removed and for a tonsillectomy in which would, the doctors hoped, cure her sleep apnea. Jahi underwent the second most common surgery for her age group. Unexpectedly, the surgery went wrong. McMath began quickly bleeding from the nose and mouth in her recovery room and she had gone into a coma. Doctors were able to restart her heart but her brain had suffered immense damage from the lack of oxygen. The damage …show more content…
If a patient experiences the ‘irreversible cessation of all functions o the brain,” they are legally dead. All fifty states passed laws or has adhered to guidelines supported by the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association that concern death being determinated. This sets of guidelines identify brain death as death. But one state stands as an outlier. New Jersey is the only state that considers an individual's religious belief before declaring a patient's death. In McMath’s case, these laws are beneficial. McMath’s family was able to keep their daughter, who was legally brain dead, ‘alive’ by flying her across the country. The state of New Jersey allowed the family to keep Jahi on a ventilator so her blood continued to circulate and her heart kept beating even though her neurological stem was no longer …show more content…
Many confuse brain death with simply being in a coma or in a vegetative state in which the patient has preserved brainstem functions. When brain dead, a person no longer has a functioning brainstem and will never again. Simple tests can determine if the brain has any function or not, all of which Jahi failed. Tests to see if pupils dilate with the flash of a light are done repeatedly and reflexes are tested. With the right treatment, a brain dead patient's body functions can stay intact for weeks or months after they’re considered legally dead; Jahi has lasted an incredible amount of time, topping a little over two years. The Lazarus effect is an involuntary muscle reflex that is show in some brain dead patients and is confusing in Jahi’s case because it is giving the family another reason to believe her brain is still functioning. “I think the lesson we've learned is that, often, the law conflicts with our beliefs and principles, and when they collide the experience turns into something that no one expected to be,” said Areva Martin, managing and founding partner of Martin & Martin- a law firm in Los Angeles, California. Back and forths between the family and the hospital, court proceedings included, continued from the twelfth of December, 2013 until the fifth of January, 2014 because of Jahi McMath’s devout christian faith