We often say that religion and politics don’t mix, but that doesn’t make sense because religion is a form of politics. It’s politics and science that don’t mix. Poilitics deal with absolute rights and matters of law while science deals with degrees of certainty.
I’m starting to repeat myself (maybe I should change my handle to ‘pragman’) but it’s all about drawing the line. There should be a point at which a medical procedure should be considered tried and true and not simply part of someones belief system. We already draw the line at some of the ways parents are allowed to treat their children. In a life-threatening situation, it should be reasonable for the state to require tried-and-true medical treatment for children and unreasonable for parents to refuse such treatment, religion or no.
id say only if its a disease that has a 99% fatality rate. But as far as parents rights goes i think they go further than some strangers. Think about this… what if the doctor only did that because he wanted the money and the treatment wouldent help at all, but the kid loses a leg.
What if you gave the kid a blood transfusion that he didn’t really HAVE to have, but you thought he probably would do better with it than not, and he got AIDS from it? I know they test the blood and all, but the risk is not 0.0000%.
I will tell you this, and it’s not for religious reasons at all: if my dr. wanted to give me a blood transfusion, and it wasn’t a matter of life-and-death but a matter of me being very tired for a few days and having to drink lots of water or eat liver or whatever if I didn’t get it, I would say, no thank you, I’ll take my chances without it. I know that with the best intentions in the world, mistakes are made. I don’t want AIDS.
It’s true that doctors often prescribe blood transfusions when it’s not a matter of life and death. Once your hemoglobin gets dangerously low, the doctor and nurse will want to give you a transfusion. Say you had coronary artery bypass graft surgery yesterday, and today your hemoglobin is 7.0. Can you survive without a blood transfusion? If you’re otherwise in good health, probably. Your almost certain to do a whole lot better and have fewer complications if you get the blood.
As with any treatment, from surgery to giving the patient an aspirin, there are risks. The job of the medical team is to evaluate the risks and inform the patient of what those risks are. “Look, there is a miniscule chance that you can contract AIDS or hepatitis from this blood transfusion, or you could have a deadly transfusion reaction. On the other hand, if you don’t get this blood, you will almost certainly die.” An adult patient has the absolute right to refuse any treatment. As a nurse, I may not agree with your choice but I will defend it by every means necessary.
Believe it or not, doctors and nurses respect the right of patients to refuse treatments they don’t want. A hospital will not seek a court order to force a transfusion unless it is necessary to save a child’s life.
JW parents (under threat of disfellowship and damnation) refuse blood transfusions for their kids. They kidnap their kids from the hospital to prevent transfusion. Kids die because of this.
Way up near the top of this thread, Quadell (welcome back, BTW) said:
Yes, they are still the parents. But their children are not their property. They are human beings. When parents abuse their kids, the courts step in (or at least should). When parents otherwise neglect their kids, the courts step in. If the parents choose a course of action that would likely result in harm or death – even because of a religious belief – the courts should step in to save the child.
If medical experts declare with a high degree of certainty that a certain procedure is necessary to prevent a child’s death, then the law should mandate it. Science is not a belief system, and this isn’t a game of make-believe, this is life and death.
I’m still mulling this over, and I don’t have a final answer to the OP, but several side issues have occurred to me:
What if the child aactually does want to get treatment, but the parents refuse consent?
What if (as Casdave asked), the parents refuse on the basis of cost? This question was dismissed as not being what is being discussed, but if parents can refuse for one reason, can’t they refuse for another reason? Even if religion is the central issue, if the State forces the treatment upon the a CS’s child, is it fair to bill the parents? On the other hand, would it be fair not to bill CS parents, but do bill parents that consent to treatment?
What if a treatment has serious side effects? For instance, chemotherapy can often be worse than the cancer it is supposedly treating (and I say supposdedly because chemotherapy doesn’t have anywhere near a 100% sucess rate). Does a parent have the right to decide that they would prefer their child to have a life expectancy of six relatively painless months than one very painful year?
Ryan: For the last question, I would say allow the parents to decide if the doctors think the child will die either way. If, however, there is a decent chance of killing off the cancer, it should be done.
what do you think about the situation I described, where the likely treatment was amputation of the leg, and both the parents and the boy were opposed? When I read about the judge’s order, I had an image of the boy being taken into surgery, crying “I don’t want you to cut off my leg!”
The issue didn’t arise because the cancer had spread, but what do you think of it? It gave me the willies.
You’re stacking the deck. Did you know that there have been many instances of Witness children who have been given transfusions despite their parents’ refusal and have been brought back dead?
Hadn’t thought about that, had you?
I recognize that quite a few who have posted here do not accept Christianity or even the notion that there is a God–let alone the doctrine of the Witnesses opposing blood transfusions. Somehow I sense that for those so opposed to advise me on this matter–well, it’s a little like hiring the fox to guard the chickens.
And I reject the idea that the State must be allowed latitude in a controversy such as this. Didn’t they go through something like that in Germany sixty years ago??
Seriously, these almost have to be taken on a case-by-case basis. If the cancer is of the type that is known to spread rapidly, and amputation is the best known way to stop it, then amputation it is. What’s worse: A kid who has one leg or a dead kid?
There is a nice catch to this issue, atleast in the state of NM
As an EMT, I advise a patient that if he does not accept medical treatment he is in danger of loosing life or limb.
Now, if for some reasion I can, with the assistance of a doctor, deem my patient mentally incomptant to make an informed decision, I can treat and transport him w/o his concent.
The normal realms of this law revolves around people who have consumed mind altering drugs, or patients whom have been injured in their head. I have seen this taken to pretty extreme measures. I once heard over the radio a Paramedic call a doctor because his patient did not want to go to the hospital. The paramedic believed that the patient was bleeding internally. The doctor stated that the patient had lost too much blood, and deemed the patient unable to make an informed decision. That patient got the Ambulance to the hospital.
All this proves is that the child was going to die no matter what. Doctors tried to save the child with a blood transfusion, but they were unable to. What on earth does this prove?
`They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety’
What neutron star said. Plus, if a transfusion is needed to save a life there generally isn’t much time to spare. Minutes count. Getting a court order to force a transfusion (I’ve never been involved in one personally, as I don’t work pediatrics) takes time. Sometimes kids die because the parents’ refusal causes a fatal delay.
I’m all for JW’s refusing blood for themselves, even though I obviously don’t agree with the doctrine. I’ve on a few occasions had JW patients who died rather than take blood; I wouldn’t dream of interfering with that. I don’t think JW’s have the right to make their kids pay for that doctrine with their lives.
To Holly:
You would prefer to dictate others’ religion to them then? (I understand the Chinese Communists, when taking over the producting of livestock, took it upon themselves to force Musliums in China to eat pork; religion, is, after all, according to Marx, “The opiate of the masses.”)
In 1970, then L. A. Police Chief Tom Reddin, in a Saturday editorial on a local radio station, deplored the skid row bums who would give any answer expedient, when they wanted to sell their blood for Muscatel or Tokay. I know medical science is more sophisticated now, but the fact remains that the Bible (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17;10, 11, the 15th chapter of Acts) forbid the use of blood in medical treatment such as transfusion; I refuse to accept the notion that medical expedience compels anyone to be conveniently hypocritical in observance of their religion; I could compare it to Jews or Muslums living in Iowa or other pig-farming areas and being pressured for the sake of the local economy to eat pork anyway. And I have already made clear the point about what is or can be more important than one’s own life–and there are such things, as noted in Matthew 10:39.
What about a parent who refuses medical treatment, or a specific medical procedure, for non-religious reasons? Say the child was on life-support with no hope of recovery, and the parent wanted to discontinue it? Or the parent refused to allow the life-support equipment to be hooked up in the first place? Or a parent refusing to allow a surgery because he or she disagreed with the doctor’s opinion of its worth?
Would you still consider those situations “negilgent homicide”, or is it just the religious aspect that bothers you?
(I’m non-religous but hate the idea of languishing on life-support equipment.)
“The analyst went barking up the wrong tree, of course. I never should have mentioned unicorns to a Freudian.” – Dottie (“Jumpers” by Tom Stoppard)
