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   From: ghettos@oakland.com   
      
   SAN FRANCISCO –   A Northern California mother's two-year quest   
   to have her brain-dead daughter declared legally alive moved to   
   federal court Wednesday after attempts to secure an order from a   
   state judge ended in failure.   
      
   Lawyers for the mother of 13-year-old Jahi McMath filed a   
   lawsuit in San Francisco federal court asking that the girl be   
   declared alive after state courts have refused to rescind the   
   teen's death certificate. McMath suffered cardiac arrest in   
   December 2013 after a routine operation to remove her tonsils to   
   cure her sleep apnea. Doctors say she suffered irreversible   
   brain damage from lack of oxygen and declared her brain dead.   
      
   The Alameda County coroner in Oakland, California, signed Jahi   
   McMath's death certificate a few weeks later, but McMath's   
   family sought a state court ruling declaring the teen is still   
   alive. A state court judge earlier this year refused the   
   family's request and upheld the death certificate after a   
   respected Stanford University neurologist and two other medical   
   experts concluded the girl was dead.   
      
   Jahi's family is now asking a federal judge to declare Jahi   
   alive and invalidate the death certificate. If that happens,   
   insurance companies will be required to pay for her medical   
   treatment, says lawyer Chris Dolan, who represents Jahi's family.   
      
   Dolan says insurance companies are paying for Jahi's nursing   
   care and around-the-clock treatment with a ventilator in New   
   Jersey, the only state in the country that requires medical   
   treatment of patients like McMath who are declared dead but show   
   minimal brain function.   
      
   McMath's family, led by her mother Nailah Winkfield, want a   
   federal court to invalidate the death certificate so they can   
   care for the in their home in Oakland.   
      
   "I want her to have the same rights as any other disabled kid,"   
   Winkfield said.   
      
   McMath's mother says her daughter show some signs of life,   
   including the twitching of fingers and toes.   
      
   Medical experts said those movements could be spasms and   
   reflexes commonly seen in corpses. They say McMath shows hardly   
   any brain activity and is clinically dead.   
      
   But her mother isn't ready to give up. Winfield said she   
   recently sold her Oakland home and is living off those rapidly   
   dwindling proceeds.   
      
   "I won't give up on Jahi, because I'm her mother," Winkfield   
   said.   
      
   http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/24/mom-continues-legal-fight-   
   to-rescind-daughters-death-ruling.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)