Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Thorny legal knot
Personally I think that people have a right to refuse treatment. Hence Jehovah's witnesses are allow to kill themselves by refusing blood transfusions. It is part of their freedom of religon.
The issue gets more complex when there is a mionr involved. It pisses me off when a guardian causes there ward to die under the same circumstances. Parents are Jehovah's Witnesses and let or encourage their child to die. I find this to be a breach of parental responsibility.
In this case, the state ruled that the parents were not allowed to let the minor die. In fact, it was the state's responsibility to save her life. The judge took away the child from the parents for them acting on their legal rights (And endangering their child). She is now a ward of the state and the state has concented to the blood tranfusion she needs.
I like the fact that she is not being martyred for superstition, I don't like the court's breach of the families freedom of religon.
This one will leave my brain smoking for a while.
Jax
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled that a 14-year-old cancer patient from the Okanagan must accept a blood transfusion, despite her religious opposition to transfusions.
The girl, who cannot be identified, had said she didn't want a transfusion because it would violate her beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness. So when a provincial court judge authorized doctors to give her a transfusion if needed, the teen – with the support of her family and her church – appealed to the B.C. Supreme Court. She had already consented to chemotherapy, surgery and even possible amputation of her leg. But in a court document, the teen says a transfusion would be a violation of her person, not unlike a rape.
"It's no different than somebody getting sexually assaulted or raped or robbed or something. You'd feel violated because it's not anybody else's property, it's you." Lawyers for the attorney general and the children's ministry argued that provincial laws state that a minor's health and welfare are paramount – and that children do not have the legal capacity to to decide their treatment. Madam Justice Mary Boyd agreed that denying the 14-year-old her wishes was not a violation under the Charter of Rights – that freedom of religion is not absolute.
The court has also made the girl a ward of the province, saying that the legal system is bound to protect a child's right to life. The family has not yet decided whether to appeal the latest decision. Their lawyer Shane Brady says he's disappointed in the decision, but that the girl is hopeful her doctor will choose not to violate her wishes while she completes another three months of treatment. "The family is disappointed because their position has been, all along, that once the court has found that she is as capable as you and I, that young woman should make the decision," says Brady. The 14-year-old girl is slated to undergo three more months of chemotherapy, beginning on Tuesday. (Link)
The issue gets more complex when there is a mionr involved. It pisses me off when a guardian causes there ward to die under the same circumstances. Parents are Jehovah's Witnesses and let or encourage their child to die. I find this to be a breach of parental responsibility.
In this case, the state ruled that the parents were not allowed to let the minor die. In fact, it was the state's responsibility to save her life. The judge took away the child from the parents for them acting on their legal rights (And endangering their child). She is now a ward of the state and the state has concented to the blood tranfusion she needs.
I like the fact that she is not being martyred for superstition, I don't like the court's breach of the families freedom of religon.
This one will leave my brain smoking for a while.
Jax
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled that a 14-year-old cancer patient from the Okanagan must accept a blood transfusion, despite her religious opposition to transfusions.
The girl, who cannot be identified, had said she didn't want a transfusion because it would violate her beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness. So when a provincial court judge authorized doctors to give her a transfusion if needed, the teen – with the support of her family and her church – appealed to the B.C. Supreme Court. She had already consented to chemotherapy, surgery and even possible amputation of her leg. But in a court document, the teen says a transfusion would be a violation of her person, not unlike a rape.
"It's no different than somebody getting sexually assaulted or raped or robbed or something. You'd feel violated because it's not anybody else's property, it's you." Lawyers for the attorney general and the children's ministry argued that provincial laws state that a minor's health and welfare are paramount – and that children do not have the legal capacity to to decide their treatment. Madam Justice Mary Boyd agreed that denying the 14-year-old her wishes was not a violation under the Charter of Rights – that freedom of religion is not absolute.
The court has also made the girl a ward of the province, saying that the legal system is bound to protect a child's right to life. The family has not yet decided whether to appeal the latest decision. Their lawyer Shane Brady says he's disappointed in the decision, but that the girl is hopeful her doctor will choose not to violate her wishes while she completes another three months of treatment. "The family is disappointed because their position has been, all along, that once the court has found that she is as capable as you and I, that young woman should make the decision," says Brady. The 14-year-old girl is slated to undergo three more months of chemotherapy, beginning on Tuesday. (Link)
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"It is part of their freedom of religion."
Freedom of religion is a meaningless and indefensible freedom/right. If someone rejects religious belief, how can this person recognise "freedom of religion" with any measure of respect for the person holding the religious belief? We marginalise people with diagnosed mental conditions and we patronise those children with belief in tooth fairies or Santa Clause.
Rather than speak of freedom of religion, it would be much better to speak of freedom of conscience. Using this paradigm for discourse rather than a discriminatory one both allows for the minor concept of freedom of religion and the far more important, freedom of conscience.
People can think whatever they want, regardless of their thoughts' validity or what someone else thinks of it (expressing those thoughts are a completely different kettle of fish since no civilised society can allow for the advocation of violence, for e.g.). This nicely gets around the problem of being able to be respectful of adults whom you might consider to have the same inability to distinguish between belief and reality of young children (religious belief in this case, for e.g.).
Freedom of religion is a meaningless and indefensible freedom/right. If someone rejects religious belief, how can this person recognise "freedom of religion" with any measure of respect for the person holding the religious belief? We marginalise people with diagnosed mental conditions and we patronise those children with belief in tooth fairies or Santa Clause.
Rather than speak of freedom of religion, it would be much better to speak of freedom of conscience. Using this paradigm for discourse rather than a discriminatory one both allows for the minor concept of freedom of religion and the far more important, freedom of conscience.
People can think whatever they want, regardless of their thoughts' validity or what someone else thinks of it (expressing those thoughts are a completely different kettle of fish since no civilised society can allow for the advocation of violence, for e.g.). This nicely gets around the problem of being able to be respectful of adults whom you might consider to have the same inability to distinguish between belief and reality of young children (religious belief in this case, for e.g.).
# posted by 
: 4/15/2005 10:28:00 p.m.
: 4/15/2005 10:28:00 p.m.
Freedom of conscience means in fact freedom of morality, for it is your conscience that dictates your morality.
It implies that the state should stick to enforcing ethics and not morality.
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It implies that the state should stick to enforcing ethics and not morality.
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