This happened in NYC. My friend wasn’t a minor, but was in a medically induced coma. I’m sorry I don’t know the exact legal words, but she didn’t have a statement of intent filed with the hospital stating what her medical wishes would be. Her mother was able to make all of the medical decisions for her.
According the nurse I know, the hospital was able to give her a partial transfusion until the mother found out and threatened major lawsuits.
The surreal part is that my friend is not being allowed to have a funeral at the JW Hall, because she was a lapsed member. So, she died because of JW beliefs, but even that wasn’t good enough to be considered for a “proper” funeral.
You realize, don’t you, that this opens the door to other “self-destructive” behavior? For instance, if I’m dying of multiple sclerosis and don’t want to become a wadded-up, pain-wracked skeleton before I die, I should have the right to painlessly end my life at the point I can no longer hold up my own head. And surely you see the difference between forcing medical treatment on a terminally ill or terminally elderly patient, and an otherwise healthy, young mother of two who, but for the simple administration of a few units of blood product, would have lived to raise her babies?
I’m not saying these are easy choices, but I am saying that sometimes the patient knows best … and sometimes the doctor does.
The back story to my post: My sister the lesbian’s only biological daughter is a devout JW. When my sister was in an accident and needed a blood transfusion, her parnter said “yes” and her daughter said “no.” Apparently they had a huge fight in the hospital. I was finally called to make the decision and told them to go ahead. My sister the lesbian’s chances of a JW afterlife were hardly being threatened by a blood transfusion–she’s a militant lesbian for Christ’s sake.
15 minutes after I signed the go ahead, I had JW’s at my office door. I told them to go away.
But her daughter was perfectly willing to see her mother die for the tenants of a religion that my sister does not follow or believe in.
Yes, many times the doctor does KNOW best. However, I personally am not willing to give him/her the right to do what they want. Even if I am acting out of complete and utter ignorance, I am the one acting. It’s my body. Obviously when it comes to children the choices are much harder, or with people who don’t have their wits working, like Wallet’s friend, but as long as I am awake and adult, please, you can tell me what’s best for me all day long but at the end of the day I get to choose. That line is easy to draw.
My dim view was in reference to suicide. I have never met a medical anything who would advocate for choosing death over a simple medical procedure that saves thousands of lives a day, with minimal potential for problems.
My biggest concern is always going to be quality of life. Women in all but the most disasterous delivery scenarios go on to live normal, heathy, happy lives. She had time to cuddle her babies before she died…oh poor her. She chose to die right then and there. If she had 3 independently firing brain cells she could have easily lived to see her grandchildren.
I don’t see this facet of JW beleifs to be any more valid than claiming defibrillators inject evil spirits into the body that reanimate it.
So, if you are in the emergency ward when a patient is rushed in with a self-inflicted bullet head wound due to a suicide attempt. Do you attempt to save the patient or do you step back letting the patient’s decision to die work itself out?
Save the patient. Unfortunately this is an implied consent situation, the patient is not in any condition to refuse or consent therefore it is assumed they want to be saved.
Self inflicted is also not always as obvious as it might seem.
A. Find me a single verified instance of a member of the Church of Satan sacrificing any child to Satan, and then we’ll talk.
B. No, I wouldn’t support anyone who sacrifices their children to their Deity or in the name of their religion - I’m thinking at the moment of militant Muslims encouraging child suicide bombers and soldiers, but I suppose if there are any worshipers of Baal or Molech still around, I condemn them as well.
C. This has nothing at all to do with the OP.
D. It’s perfectly possible to support religious freedom up until the point where it crosses the line into illegal activity like murdering children. As far as I know, refusing blood FOR YOURSELF is not illegal, nor should it be.
Nonono, I’m not condoning what she did or saying that she’s right. I just have very few convictions* that strong, so it’s kind of amazing to me that some do.
(Other than my moral convictions regarding how I interact with others, I mean.)
Well, I have to say that I don’t see where you’re arguing with me, since, for the most part, I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said here. And, certainly, I’d never argue “government intervention because government knows best” since I wouldn’t trust the government to tell me which way an elevator was going if I gave them three guesses (credit to “Hee Haw” for that one).
Of course we revile the congressbastards who tried to intervene WRT Schiavo. They attempted to insert their so-called culture of life theology into a situation where it didn’t belong, and all to appease the wishes of Ms. Schiavo’s parents who, despite irrefutable medical evidence that their daughter would ever improve, refused to let her go. But, more importantly, they were trying to override the wishes of Ms. Schiavo’s husband who, as her husband, was presumably more qualified to make life-and-death decisions for his wife.
As for reviling those who would let a JW die for lack of medical intervention because of her religious beliefs, I’d say that it depends on who those people are. If you mean healthcare professionals, I don’t see how they would have any choice but to accede to the wishes of any patient who is a competent adult. Family members of the JW? Again, if the patient is an adult who is capable of making that kind of choice, what else can they do?
Now, in a case like that of **Wallet’s ** friend, where the person is an incapacitated adult and therefore can’t articulate their wishes, it seems that the only choice is to follow the wishes of the immediate next of kin. And, sometimes–as is the case here–that sucks.
Even in the case of Annie-Xmas’s sister, where the sister’s (presumably adult) daughter was willing to sacrifice her mother for some religious BS, I don’t know if the hospital would have been required to check with other next of kin. Don’t get me wrong–THANK GOODNESS that they had the presence of mind (and, possibly, the guts) to call **Annie-Xmas ** so that *she * could decide–but if the daughter was legally an adult and the immediate next of kin, I don’t know that they would have been wrong in the legal sense to abide by her wishes. (Again, IANALawyer.)
(This case with **Annie-Xmas’s ** sister serves to highlight *yet again * why gay marriage ought to be legalized since, presumably for liability reasons (and, all-too-possibly, outright homophobia), the hospital wouldn’t treat the sister’s partner as next of kin for the purpose of making medical decisions. It also highlights why we should *all * have living wills on file. That way, there’s little to no question about what our wishes are in these kinds of situations. I really need to remember to have one drawn up for myself as soon as possible.)
What occurs to me after reading this thread is “How in the hell do the JW’s find out about it?”
With all the new HIIPPA (sp?) laws in effect, I can’t fathom how anyone could find out what treatment she got.
I recall a statement in one of my pregnancy books that pretty much said, “do whatever the hell you need to get through the delivery, no one is handing out a medal and it is YOUR body and your privacy. Leave the hospital and tell everyone you took no pain meds, who cares, it isn’t like they can find out.”
Do JW’s have the church follow them to the hospital and sign forms to let them analyze every procedure?
And not to side-rail too much, I love that judaism is so much more logical about those sorts of things and can rationally take into account things like diabetes and injuries on Sundays. However, the Sabbath Elevators just crack me up.
The JW’s are literally brainwashed into the idea that accepting a blood transfusion is unnecessary, will not save your life, will probably give you hepatitis and/or AIDS, will make you evil, and will prevent you from having an afterlife. They believe it is better to die now rather than lose your chance of living in the heaven on earth that has been going to happen “soon” for more than the past 100 years.
They also fear “disfellowship” which means all other JW’s have to treat you like you are dead. They cannot talk to you or acknowledge you in any way, or they too can be disfellowed. In short, you lose your whole support system. JW’s are only suppose to associate with the “real world” when trying to convert other people.
These fears and beliefs are more powerful than anything.
ETA: In reference to my sister, the hospital decided her beliefs made her mentally and legally incompetent to decide medical treatment for my sister, which put me next in line. I cannot tell you what it was like to hear the story, take care of what had to be done, sitting in my office alone in a state of shock and worry, and then have people at my office door telling me of how I had just “destroyed” my sister.
Presumably, it’s on the honor system, as are other religious rules. Rabbis don’t follow Jews around to see if we keep kosher, and priests don’t follow Catholics around to see if they’re using birth control.
Suicide is a very hard call. You can argue that any suicidal patient is by definition mentally ill and therefore incompetent. However, how do you distinguish between mental illness and religious beliefs you disagree with? This woman felt that she would forever be denied salvation in the next life if she refused a transfusion. Are you so willing to say that her religion is wrong that you would deny somebody salvation? (Playing devil’s advocate here; I too like the fact that Judaism is sometimes rational).
I have been faced in the past with trying to forcibly treat an actively suicidal patient who refused treatment. As the attending physician, I was the one who had to give the order to security to restrain him so that he wouldn’t leave the hospital in critical condition. After the magistrate decided that he could not be held (because he decided to say that he would not attempt suicide again if released, even though it was his second attempt in two weeks) then I was the one with the legal liability who was at risk of being charged with battery.
I’m just saying, that you have to make a judgement call sometimes, but forcing a woman to live resenting her children as the reason she will eternally burn in Hell (or whatever this woman believed) might not have been in anyone’s best interest.
Not just that- it’s required. If it would threaten your life for some medical reason to fast on Yom Kippur, you are not only allowed not to fast- you are forbidden to fast. If you could save someone’s life by driving them to the hospital on the Sabbath, and there is no other way to get them to the hospital, you are required to do it. If you have a life-threatening disease and there is a medication made from pork that would cure that disease, you’re not allowed to cite the kosher laws as a reason not to take it.
You certainly wouldn’t be allowed to deny a life-saving treatment (unless it involved murder, idolatry, or adultery) to a non-Jew because it violated some point of Jewish law if you were in a position to do so. There wouldn’t be any particular merit in doing that- non-Jews aren’t expected to follow Jewish law, and we don’t think they’re punished in the afterlife for not following it.
Never say this to a JW. They believe “Hell” is just another word for the grave. Hellfire is a concept Satan gave to the world.
They believe that at some point 144,000 dead JW’s will be taken to live in heaven, and the rest of them will live forever in a paradise on earth. Getting a blood transfusion will end this eternity of never ending perfection. The rest of us will just be wiped out by Jehovah.
I would be, but that is because I am an apostate Evangelical turned Atheist. Her religion was wrong in both “philosophies”
A suicidal patient may feel that this world and the pain it causes them is no longer worth living for. Like a terminally ill patient may feel. This is one of those crazy examples where a faith causes someone to give up their life based on some writing or teaching and that behavior is viewed as admirable, or at least unassailable. However someone else who wants to blow their own brains out because they feel that life is nothing more than misery is viewed as incompetent, ill and in definite need of help. Rightly so, but I would argue that both are in need of help.
