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SHould Jehovah's witnesess' be prosecuted?

Azrael 5

Philosopher
Azrael 5
Joined
Sep 19, 2003
Messages
6,106
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/8690785.stm

The parents surely should face manslaughter charges at least. How do they get away with it?
EVen adults who refuse treatment on religious grounds,aren't they comitting assisted suicide of sorts(medical staff not treating them therefore helping them die?),which is illegal in most countries.
How in a modern world can this happen to a child? :mad:
 
It falls under the 'guilty mind' rule. If you actually believe something is helpful, you are acting without malice. This is sometimes referred to in the 'plead insanity' type of defense, which is apt.

You could make a case for supervising these folks if they intend to raise children. But you'd have to demonstrate that as a class/category, they are putting their children at risk. Generally, I think the burden of proof falls on the State in these cases. Unfortunately, it is easier to prove harm post rather than pre.

Looks like they let the 15-year-old make the call on his own. I assumed the parents were involved.
 
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When I was doing research for Krelnik's WhatstheHarm site, I found a lot of cases like these, about Jehovah's Witnesses dying after refusing blood. Some really fascinating cases, actually.

There was one from many years ago in America where a Witness who was a father of five young children refused surgery for cancer or a workplace injury or something like that because having surgery would require blood transfusions and a judge ruled that his sons' and daughters' right to grow up with their Daddy outweighed Daddy's right to refuse blood and ordered him to have the surgery.

Another one, also some years ago in America, a Witness woman was mowed down by a drunk driver and refused to get a blood transfusion. She even ripped out her IV in the ambulance because she was convinced it was a blood transfusion. She died and the drunk driver was arrested and charged with murder.

His lawyers at argued that the victim contributed to her own death and that he should get manslaughter instead. They presented expert witnesses who testified that the victim would have lived had she not refused blood. The prosecution pressed for murder and argued that she would not have lived even if she had taken the blood. And they presented their own expert witnesses, who testified that she would have probably died anyway.

The dirtbag ended up getting manslaughter. Only went to prison for 7 years, for killing a woman. The jury found that the victim was partially to blame for her own death.

Too tragic that she refused blood. Then a) she might have lived, b) if she hadn't, we would have been able to throw the book at the bastard that murdered her.

Edit: This boy also did something quite terrible to the driver of the car. By refusing blood, he gave the driver of the car a lifetime of grief for having killed him.
 
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georgia USA law has severe penaltys for allowing a child to die from the lack of a blood transfusion. if they are in a hospital and they will die if they don't have a transfusion they are forced to have one anyway. Same with Xtian scientists if they allow their child to die from a lack of medical treatment.
 
Jehovahs Witnesses are not against volume increasing fluids such as Ringers Lactate. Would the infusion of such a "non blood" liquid help a victim of an accident survive the trauma of massive blood loss? It would at least provide something for the heart to pump.
 
Is there a specific reason that JWs won't take a blood transfusion?

And in the case of surgery, couldn't you just store your own blood first? Or is that prohibited too?
 
Azrael 5 said:
EVen adults who refuse treatment on religious grounds,aren't they comitting assisted suicide of sorts(medical staff not treating them therefore helping them die?),which is illegal in most countries.
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Adults have the right to refuse any medical treatment. Medical staff are not assisting suicide in those cases.
 
There's something in the New Testament about not having blood. Most Christians think it means not to eat animal blood, but Jehova's witnesses think it means that you can't have a transfusion either.
 
Skwinty said:
Jehovahs Witnesses are not against volume increasing fluids such as Ringers Lactate. Would the infusion of such a "non blood" liquid help a victim of an accident survive the trauma of massive blood loss? It would at least provide something for the heart to pump.
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That's correct. Trauma victims get fluids, like lactated Ringers, to replace lost the lost blood volume and prevent hypovolemic shock. I've heard of a pilot prehospital (i.e., EMS) program with a synthetic fluid that is supposed to provide (temporarily) the oxygen-carrying function as well, but I don't know anything about it.
 
Acts 15 v. 29 says "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things."

I thought this was just repeating a law from the Old Testament, but I can't put my finger on it. It seems to be prohibiting the eating of black puddings. I thought it was a law designed to enforce proper bleeding-out of slaughtered animals, but that's not clear from the context.

Conversely, Jesus' own teachings were to the effect that he had come to liberate people from the restrictive dietary rules of Judaism. Something to the effect that when the bridegroom was present then the feasting could begin (I think).

There's no possibility that Paul or any other New Testament writer could have imagined blood transfusions, which weren't even thought about for about another 1500 years. Why anyone should want to kill themselves over such a tenuous interpretation of an ancient text is entirely beyond me.

Synthetic blood substitutes have been around for while. There's one licensed for animals called "Oxyglobin", which gets over some of the difficulties of getting donated blood from small animal species. However, looking at the ingredients it says "bovine haemoglobin", which would probably be a no-no too.

I see some stuff on wikipedia about perfluorocarbon-based oxygen therapeutics, and I sysect these would be acceptable. However, I'm not sure how well developed or widely available such products are. They're really only useful for short-term use in trauma patients as they don't have white cells or platelets and so on, but I'd have thought they would help in situations like the one in the article.

Rolfe.
 
marplots said:
Looks like they let the 15-year-old make the call on his own after spending years brainwashing him and convincing him Gawd would torture and kill him if he ever accepted this particular medical treatment, he would suffer 100% shunning by his friends/family/possibly employers too, and that it is always medically unnecessary anyway.
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/fixed that for you

Jehovah's Witnesses, blood transfusions, and the tort of misrepresentation. Journal of Church and State, Autumn, 2005 by Kerry Louderback-Wood.
 
Skwinty said:
Jehovahs Witnesses are not against volume increasing fluids such as Ringers Lactate. Would the infusion of such a "non blood" liquid help a victim of an accident survive the trauma of massive blood loss? It would at least provide something for the heart to pump.
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No. Only red blood cells carry oxygen to vital organs.

See the article I posted above. That is one of the the medical facts they misrepresent.
 
HENTAI DOUKYUSEI JP said:
They believe that a transfusion = canibalism.

You wouldn't want them to eat themselves would you?
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Nope, it's not a cannibalism issue at all. The underlying idea is that blood is sacred and is not to be used in any way. I can't remember the exact reasoning but it is related to the OT animal sacrifices and Jesus' sacrifice (by letting himself get killed).
 
imagineaa said:
No. Only red blood cells carry oxygen to vital organs.
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No. See blood substitutesWP. There are hemoglobin replacements and perfluorocarbon based oxygen carriers, neither of which require red blood cells or similar structures.

It is well known that cephalopods, with copper-based oxygen transport, do not have cell-based transport, and it works well for their environment.
 
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Rolfe said:
There's no possibility that Paul or any other New Testament writer could have imagined blood transfusions, which weren't even thought about for about another 1500 years. Why anyone should want to kill themselves over such a tenuous interpretation of an ancient text is entirely beyond me.
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To be fair to the believers, from their point of view that the bible is the revealed word of God it makes rather more sense; an omnipotent being would foresee blood transfusions and might pre-emptively prohibit them even if the prohibition meant nothing to those receiving it. It's far from clear, of course, that the text was intended to be taken that way.

I think it's very difficult to prosecute anyone in this case, because it appears that McAuley himself refused the transfusion and there's no indication that anyone else was even consulted. What would the crime be - teaching poor values to a child? Religious instruction? Posession of inappropriate beliefs? None of these are crimes, and I'd be seriously concerned if any of them were.

If the parents were consulted and backed their son up, it would be a grey area. If they over-ruled their son or he wasn't able to make a choice of his own, it would clearly be their fault, morally even if not legally. But from the information available, the only person who could be held responsible is the victim.

Dave
 
CriticalSock said:
Nope, it's not a cannibalism issue at all.
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My cousin is a witness and that's his belief.
But then again, witnesses from outside the U.S. have a different belief than american witness.
In El Salvador, the witness enjoys dancing to non-christian music and like sports.
American witness on the other hand, will tell you they would love to do all of that stuff but their religion comes first.
We can ask them this coming saturday-sunday when they come knocking @ our doors.
 
Dave Rogers said:
To be fair to the believers, from their point of view that the bible is the revealed word of God it makes rather more sense; an omnipotent being would foresee blood transfusions and might pre-emptively prohibit them even if the prohibition meant nothing to those receiving it. It's far from clear, of course, that the text was intended to be taken that way.

I think it's very difficult to prosecute anyone in this case, because it appears that McAuley himself refused the transfusion and there's no indication that anyone else was even consulted. What would the crime be - teaching poor values to a child? Religious instruction? Posession of inappropriate beliefs? None of these are crimes, and I'd be seriously concerned if any of them were.

If the parents were consulted and backed their son up, it would be a grey area. If they over-ruled their son or he wasn't able to make a choice of his own, it would clearly be their fault, morally even if not legally. But from the information available, the only person who could be held responsible is the victim.

Dave
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I mostly agree with you, but there is grey area when it comes to teaching harmful beliefs, although it only tends to come into play when those beliefs cause harm to a third party.
 
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