I came in here just to say that I get what **Shoshana’s ** saying here, as it was my thought, too.
And while I can’t speak for her, I’d like to say, c’mon, guys, there’s no need to pile on her. She has not, after all, offered an endorsement of this woman’s choice.
And while I think that this woman had the right to refuse specific medical intervention in accordance with her beliefs (a choice which, let me be clear, I believe to be head-bangingly stupid), I wouldn’t compare it to the 9/11 hijackers. You have the right to cause harm to yourself, not to others, and this woman chose to harm *only * herself.
Yeah, an argument can be made that, by depriving her children of a mother, her husband of a wife, etc., she’s harmed others, but…well, they didn’t die as a result of her refusal of medical intervention–she did.
I must say also that I’m somewhat troubled at the suggestion that the children should be removed from the father, solely by dint of his being a JW. Why? I mean, we allow children to be reared in religious beliefs with which we disagree–sometimes vehemently disagree–all the time. The best we can hope is that the children somehow grow up to be rational thinkers or, at the very least, not endeavor to shove their beliefs down the throats of us non-believers.
So what makes this any different?
Now, if a situation arose where the children required medical intervention that the father wouldn’t allow due to his beliefs, then yes, since the children aren’t of the recognized age of consent, I wouldn’t have a problem with the court stepping in. We are, after all, (supposed to be) a nation of laws, and not of religion (though we fail quite miserably and quite often in this regard). But absent such a situation? Leave it be.
Me? I couldn’t imagine belonging to a faith system/ethical sytem/whatever that required me to cause harm to myself (or to others), and I can’t imagine why people freely choose to do so. I mean, damn, if I, as a mostly kosher Jew (for another thread–I won’t explain here) were given a choice between eating swine (which I normally don’t eat) or starving to death, Judaism wouldn’t even blink if I chose to eat the swine.
But, y’know, people do really strange things in the names of their strange religions.
ETA: I see that **iamthewalrus(:3= ** has already addressed some of this.