MCLEANS SEXTUPLETS AND BLOOD ARTICLE - SCANNED COPY FOR YOU (page 3)

Lady Lee

The Legacy
....their lawyer is determined to steer the case away from issues of religious freedom, which already has proven to be a losing argument when a child's life hangs in the balance. Take religion out of it, says Brady...
bottom of page 38

OK they know a freedom of religion argument won't get them anywhere.

They know their medical side of the issue is full of holes and can easily be tossed out

So they are going to base their argument on the issue that the parents should have had their day in court before Child Services went to the court to get custody to give the babies blood.

Looks to me like they are grasping at straws here.

I have that gut feeling that the lawyers know that if the parents get in front of the media they will be vilified for making these decisions when we all know they are puppets of the WTS who are quite willing to let all the babies die to make some kind of very perverted point

garybuss

If the issue isn't "religious", what's a religion's attorney doing burning up donator's money litigating a secular point of law? It looks to me like the Watch Tower Society is little more than a PAC (Political Action Committee) disguised as a religion.

acsot

And there's that "annonymous poster" named "Lady Lee" quoted in the article. Anyone know who that could be?

skeeter1

If the issue isn't "religious", what's a religion's attorney doing burning up donator's money litigating a secular point of law? It looks to me like the Watch Tower Society is little more than a PAC (Political Action Committee) disguised as a religion.

Gary hit the nail right on the head.

The WTS says its blood ban is religious, then, now, when they will lose, they say that it's not religious. Flip Flop.

hawkaw

I believe there is a legal challenge made by the WTS because the law allows for due process. It really has nothing to do with whether someone is misleading someone on blood transfers etc.

And, actually I think (sadly) Brady has a good point as was shown in the Alberta case and many criminal and Provincial cases.

I think dough boy's point is that the Ministry of Children and Family Development should have known or should ought to have known that these premies would likely need transfers of stored and donor blood to survive.

As such the ministry should ought to have either had a judge on standby to have an immediate hearing or have had a hearing and taken the little babies into the Ministry's custody at an earlier stage in the process rather than waiting until the last minute when there was no time but to react.

Why the government didn't see this coming and do this simple thing is beyond me.

What might save the government is that they gave the babies back right away. What might also save the government is that the kids might have been doing fine based on what the doctors were saying. Thus, the ministry believed there was no need to take them into custody. Then suddenly the kids started going downhill at an unreal rate and thus, custody was needed immediately or premature death would happen. Maybe the government also has some jurisprudence on this matter too that will help.

But, Brady's point will be you can give the money back but it still is bankrobbery.

This could potentially set up a lawsuit by the parents against the hospital and the government where the parents rights to due process were infringed. I believe the WTS will try this suit option since they have money to burn (I heard the 66 acre ranch is now worth more in Georgetown - LOL). I believe that happened in Alberta too. This could also cause the government and hospital to pause the next time it happens and thus risk loosing a young innocent life.

If the WTS wins this hearing their communications team will use it to show publically how people persecute JWs and that the JW parents have rights to let these babies not have life saving blood transfusions. Remember in these hearings, the WTS lawyers are not playing for the general public but for the WTS's rank and file who have the rose coloured glasses on.

Of course the WTS will also spin the con job that these kids never needed life saving transfusion in the first place which just drives me nuts and their lawyers work for the parents and not the JWs.

My thoughts are it gives us another news cycle to hammer home a few more points.

I also think it needs to be stressed that the hospital and ministry saved the kids lives. That really has to be stressed to counteract the WTS's comment that blood was not necessary.

Let's hope Greg Brown can pull one rabbit out of the hat for this case.

hawk

Scully

I have that gut feeling that the lawyers know that if the parents get in front of the media they will be vilified for making these decisions when we all know they are puppets of the WTS who are quite willing to let all the babies die to make some kind of very perverted point

All along, the parents have requested anonymity and to have their privacy respected. I wonder how they feel about the WTS swooping in, uninvited, essentially forcing them into the public eye in order to chalk up another legal case for the WTS. I wonder if anyone has ever felt dirty after being turned into one of the WTS's pawns?

I liked the point that the MacLean's article makes regarding how Hospital Liaison Committee™ members routinely check hospital records for JW patients and set the wheels in motion for situations like this to have the Legal Department™ at Bethel take over. I would like to know, in light of the parents' request to have their privacy respected, whether the HLC took it upon themselves to find these people and then get Bethel involved before the parents had an opportunity to request assistance from the WTS.

I remember at the very beginning of this ordeal that WTS spokesman Michael Ruge stated that he really wanted to know who these anonymous parents were, and that they didn't know who they were. I am curious as to whether the WTS put pressure on the Vancouver HLC to find out who these people are and report back to HQ. I am curious as to whether there were any breaches of patient confidentiality involved that would nullify the WTS's ability to represent these people.

page 35 of the article, centre column:

Virtually every region of the country has a "hospital liaison committee" of church elders and members. In addition to checking hospitals two or three times a week for Jehovah's Witness patients, they conduct visitations and apprise medical staff of acceptable therapies and bloodless alternatives. Critics say they also run interference against any inappropriate treatment sought by church members or ordered by doctors. Witness doctrine is also driven home by a SWAT team of lawyers, capable of arriving with remarkable speed and litigious ferocity. The Vancouver hospital itself has a bioethics committee of health professionals, ethicists and lawyers, as well as parental and spiritual representatives. The need for transfusions, standard treatment for most premature babies, was certainly on the agenda.

and in the next paragraph:

What happened to the family these past weeks and months was either the act of a loving church or a coercive cult.

kwintestal

I remember at the very beginning of this ordeal that WTS spokesman Michael Ruge stated that he really wanted to know who these anonymous parents were, and that they didn't know who they were. I am curious as to whether the WTS put pressure on the Vancouver HLC to find out who these people are and report back to HQ. I am curious as to whether there were any breaches of patient confidentiality involved that would nullify the WTS's ability to represent these people.

I would think that it would only take a few phone calls to find out who the parents were. How many congs are there in the area? Call each PO and find out who's the family having the sextuplets. UNLESS of course the family was inactive although still professing to be JW's and believing the JW doctrine in which case the local JW's may not have known, therefore bethel wouldn't have known either. Then the WTS jumping in would be even worse.

Kwin

Scully

You've got a point there, Kwintestal. But I would sure love to see the HLCs being scrutinized for merely the potential of breaching patient confidentiality.

Lawrence Hughes also stated in the article that neither he nor his wife requested the HLC's intervention in Bethany's case, which is supposed to be the way the HLCs work, yet, lo and behold, there they were, and before they even had an opportunity to object, the WTS Legal Department was there with bells on too.

Lady Lee

I have this odd feeling that this issue of MCLEANS will sell out fast.

People have this wonderous curiosity about babies and multiple births. And they aren't getting a lot from the media.

I just got back from the store and bought my copy. It was hidden behind some other magazine. When I went to take my copy two others came with it. Instead of fighting to put them back in their spot I just put them on the shelf on top of the other magazine. (It's just too difficult to reach up from the wheelchair) After I put them there I realized how much better a spot it was for them.

It wouldn't surpise me if the public wants them. But it also wouldn't surprise me if JWs swoop in and buy as many as they can

hawkaw

Here is the Supreme Court case that will be used as jurisprudence in the hearing:

http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1995/1995rcs1-315/1995rcs1-315.html

MCLEANS SEXTUPLETS AND BLOOD ARTICLE - SCANNED COPY FOR YOU

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