Judge rules against brain-dead girl’s family

Marjorie Shultz quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, December 24, 2013

There remains “a lot of turmoil about the definition of death and whether the brain is or is not functioning,” said Marjorie Shultz … who had her own harrowing encounter with the system 18 years ago, when her 19-year-old son’s car was struck head-on by a wrong-way driver….

“We were told over and over there was no hope for him,” Shultz said. She insisted on continuing his medical care, and her son now lives on his own and has bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she said…. But if doctors, using established criteria, make a finding of brain death, she said, “the law takes the position that there isn’t anything to argue about, that the person is dead.”