Friday, November 30, 2007

Too young to die for religion?

A recent case in the Seattle area of a 14 yr old boy with leukemia who refused a blood transfusion because of his adherence to the doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses has raised questions about whether a juvenile is sufficiently competent to refuse lifesaving medical treatment due to religious beliefs.

To add more to the story, the boy was living with his aunt, who is a devout Jehovah's Witness, not with his biological parents, who are not.

A lot of the bloggers at ScienceBlogs are commenting on this tragedy to varying degrees, some questioning the patient's age, some considering undue influence from the aunt. Given current laws regarding medical treatment, protection of minors, and indeed, refusal of elective procedures like tubal ligation for competent adult women, this ruling will force us all to rethink our own standards on what is considered sufficiently competent in a patient, to what extent parents and guardians ought to be held accountable to harm that comes to those in their care because of beliefs they enforce, and which reasons are applicable enough to use to choose something as permanent as death.

(Of note: there have been other incidents recently involving Jehovah's Witnesses refusing lifesaving medical treatment, such as a woman who chose to die after giving birth to twins.)

1 comment:

Danny Haszard said...

Jehovah's Witnesses elders will investigate and disfellowship any Jehovah Witness who takes a blood transfusion,to say the issue is a 'personal conscience matter' is subterfuge to keep the Watchtower out of lawsuits.

Many Jehovah's Witnesses men,women and children die every year worldwide due to blood transfusion ban.Rank & file Jehovah's Witness are indoctrinated to be scared to death of blood.

FYI
1) JW's DO USE many parts aka 'fractions' aka components of blood,so if it's 'sacred' to God why the hypocritical contradiction flip-flop?

2) They USE blood collections that are donated by Red cross and others but don't donate back,more hypocrisy.

3) The Watchtower promotes and praises bloodless elective surgeries,this is a great advancement indeed.BUT it's no good to me if I am bleeding to death from a car crash and lose half my blood volume and need EMERGENCY blood transfusion.

Know this,the reason that JW refuse blood is because of their spin on the 3000 year old Biblical old testament,modern medicine will eventually make blood donations and transfusions a thing of the past.When this technology happens it won't vindicate the Jehovah's Witnesses and all the deaths that have occured so far.
The Watchtower's rules against blood transfusions will eventually be abolished (very gradually to reduce wrongful death lawsuit liability) even now most of the blood 'components' are allowed.
In 20 years there will be artificial blood and the Red Cross will go on with other noble deeds.

None of these changes will absolve the Watchtower leaders or vindicate their twisted doctrines
Are there dangers from blood?There are over 500 aspirin deaths in USA yearly.
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Danny Haszard born 1957 3rd generation Jehovah's Witness