Ok lets try again. First of all you probably will have some pre-conceived notion that since I asked you about your religious beliefs that I was gonna try to chastize you on your atheism, but no Im not, just because Im a Christian in belief doesnt necessarily make me dislike you. ------------What Im having trouble understanding is your line of reasoning. You dont believe in God, yet you will defend the religious rights of people, even to the point of death, why? I just cant understand that. Why should a religious right be allowed to cause death? if you feel the governement dont have the right to step in simply because of the parents religious rights, then why should the government step in under any situation? Why even have child protective services? What if ( and God help us) there are religions that actually teach their adherents to abuse and molest their kids? Should the governement step in there too? or remain silent and respect the parents beliefs?------------------------You mentioned Jonestown analogy being flawed, and yes you may be right to a point. It's like comparing apples and oranges, but guess what? They are both fruits. the parents in Jonestown gave poison to their kids thinking they were following God too. This is why I dont give the concept of "religion" more power than is needed. I draw the line when lives are at stake.
AWESOME! New Article on Blood and Canadian Sextuplets
by V 44 Replies latest watchtower medical
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Junction-Guy
Well Im still hoping to hear your response, but I guess you are offline right now, I will check again later.
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Junction-Guy
Still waiting to hear your reply, No Apologies.
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Scully
And if this is so important, then hey, lets not even give patients the option of choosing. Let's just say that once you are there, the doctor will make the decision, and thats that. Is that really what you want?
Actually, that is kind of what is involved in the consent form that you sign before you go into surgery. You're saying that you trust the doctor's judgement to do what is in your best interest in the event that things are not straightforward according to the explanations you received pre-operatively.
My point is, though, and you didn't answer the question from my previous post - in the case of minor children, who do not have the capacity to make these decisions for themselves - do you think it is possible that they might one day be grateful that someone intervened and gave them a chance to live and choose for themselves whether the belief system is what they want to follow or not? What if it was you as an infant and your parents were going to let you die? Would you want someone to take YOUR side, when your parents were choosing to abide by the tenets of their religious beliefs?
Personally, I'm horrified that my parents would have let me or one of my siblings die had we ever been in that situation, and I would have been grateful for any intervention that allowed me to someday make that decision on my own.
It's really a sad thing when children come into this world with a job to do, like these babies have. Their job is to become martyrs on the WTS's altar, and the JWs and WTS are ticked because the big bad worldly doctors are trying to give these kids a chance to be kids instead of martyrs.
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No Apologies
Junction Guy,
I ran into trouble trying to post here last night too. I gave up and went to bed.
To reply to your question, I'm not defending the parent's religious rights. I mean I believe that every one should be free to believe or not believe whatever they want, as long as it doesn't harm someone else. In this case I think their religion is a money-hungry scam that does far more harm than good in the world. But if it makes them happy, good for them.
The right I see being threatened here is the rights of parents to decide what is best for their children. And once again I see you give the example of parents who deliberately abuse their kids. That's not what we are talking about here. These parents I would imagine, wanted to have children very badly, if they actually pursued some type of fertilization process, which seems to be the case. They want children, and they want their children to have healthy and happy lives. But as you know, they have been persuaded to believe that most forms of blood transfusions are not allowed by God. Is this a stupid belief? You and I will say yes. Most people will say yes. But its not our kids. We are not responsible for them. The parents are.
And I'm not even a parent. I can't imagine how someone who is, would ever accept the idea that some stranger could come in and dictate life or death decisions for their child. What gives them the right??? Scully, are you a mom? Would you ever let someone take your child away?
No Apologies
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TheKings
you cannot draw a line between an adult refusing treatment and a newborn infant because the babies cannot decide for themselves, so we come to the conclusion that someone must decide for them. either: A - doctors act to save the child's life in the only way they can or: B - cult member parents decide to refuse treatment based on flawed doctrine and their children die. what they feel about it doesn't matter two ticks. life is more important than offending their sensibilities. getting hypothetical about it and saying what if, what if, what if is going beyond what the reality of the situation is. it is useless and an exaggeration. either the children die or live. the decision was made to give them life... sounds good to me.
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Scully
Scully, are you a mom? Would you ever let someone take your child away?
Yes, No Apologies, I am a mom.
Would I ever "let" someone take my kids away? If I was doing something so stupid that it was going to result in their death, I certainly hope that someone with more sense would step in and protect my kids from my stupidity. I may not appreciate it at the time, and I may rail against it and claim that I have "rights" that are being violated, but I wouldn't want a child of mine to die or be injured because I was too stupid or brainwashed to realize the danger I was putting them in.
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misguided
Would I ever "let" someone take my kids away? If I was doing something so stupid that it was going to result in their death, I certainly hope that someone with more sense would step in and protect my kids from my stupidity. I may not appreciate it at the time, and I may rail against it and claim that I have "rights" that are being violated, but I wouldn't want a child of mine to die or be injured because I was too stupid or brainwashed to realize the danger I was putting them in,
Ditto for me. There would have been a time, not that long ago, that I would have let my babies die if the government wouldn't have stepped in and gave them the medically needed treatment. Now I know how misguided this would have been.
Can you imagine the thought processes going on for the devout jw going through this? I'm imagining what it would be like for me. You're taught that you will be "blessed" for putting "kingdom interests" first. So you "sacrifice" your child to receive this blessing. It is not a blessing that is going to happen today (even though you're about to have to face the fact you've martyred you child) but in the future. Jehovah will bring your child back to life in the New System, provided you stay faithful until the end. You think this future is just around "the corner" but it's not. This system keeps going on and on.
You start looking at babies that are around the same age as the one(s) you "sacrificed" to this cult. 5, 10, 15, 20 years pass. You're still waiting on Jehovah. You're still waiting for your blessing. You feel like there's something not quite right, but the HLC committee was right there "helping" you make your "righteous" deciscion, for what you think at the time is God, but later find out is just a book publishing corporation. The HLC committe was Jehovah's "loving arrrangement" for helping you make this godly descision. You really had not much of a choice. Sacrifice your child...make Jehovah happy...Save your child....make Satan happy. It's so crazy!
It was interesting for me to see that when when I had my 2nd baby only 1 elder came to visit me in the hospital. 10 days later when I was having a post partem hemmorage...I had almost every elder, brother, sister, "friend" in the congregation "visiting" me in the hospital. At the time I thought it was strange. Now I know it was because they were watching ME!
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Scully
I daresay that those parents will one day appreciate the gift that the BC government gave their children and them. It's tragic enough that two of these babies died already - I can only imagine the enormity of their grief if the remaining four died too.
It's not like the parents really have an option to permit blood transfusions if they do not want to be castigated and ostracised by their congregation and maybe even their own families. We all know they would be DA'd in absentia if they consented to blood transfusions for the children. At least this way, they can have a "clear conscience" that they did what they were supposed to do in the eyes of the congregation, and the babies get the treatment they needed. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
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MinisterAmos
Hypocrites and ingrates the lot.
I'm surprised that editorialists are not chastizing the Watch Tower for moral impropriety as well.
It came as no surprise to anyone that the blood issue came up in this case, so why wasn't the WT prepared? If they really cared about the babies rather than the opportunity for a littlr martyrdom and persecution, they would have transfered the babies to a private facility.
If one of the WT compounds does not have the facilities, there are many private hospitals in countries that are less inclined to interfere when Moms and Dads want their children to die.
An morally honest group would have put them on a jet, transfered them and ponied up the cash to pay for the care rather than paying for a lawyer to publicize the case and encouraging Mom and Dad to complain about the Gov't paid-for medical care.