evilapostate: I think that parents should not be allowed to force minors to refuse life saving treatment involving blood.
I agree. I think that if a parent refuses a life saving blood transfusion for their minor child that it should be a criminal offense. If parents started getting charged for placing their child's life in danger, more children would get the medical care that they deserve.
Most countries have acts/laws that allow a doctor to transfuse a minor but that doesn't stop the JWs from acting out their blood phobia on vulnerable children. And it doesn't stop those medical doctors who think that it is just fine to try out alternative and experimental procedures on minor children when they decide that they will "respect" the parents' wishes.
How that applies to this case here, where a young mother died and left a child behind, is that the child had no say in whether or not it was okay for their mother to sacrifice herself for that blood phobia. I am totally in agreement that the child is entitled to legal representation when their future if going to be effected.
The JWs have no regard for anyone else except themselves. The blood doctrine has got to be the most selfish doctrine ever made - the impact that this doctrine has had on the rest of the world is immeasurable. The people left behind to cope when a JW sacrifices themselves, the medical staff forced to watch someone die who didn't have to, the health care systems forced to undertake procedures that are experimental and off-label, the extra financial burden that alternative procedures entail, the legal system that gets bogged down with individuals that represent a corporation, and a donor pool that gets sucked on to support the so-called bloodless procedures that use blood products in its delivery.
I support the right of an individual to refuse medical treatment(s). No problem - I am all in favor of it. What I am not in favor of is a corporation that gives inaccurate and incomplete medical information to people and then those people die because of that wrong advice.
I would like to see the Watchtower held accountable for giving out bad and inaccurate medical information. Their literature and publications are full of wrong conclusions and incomplete information. Their medical advice is just plain wrong. There is no way that an argument can be made that a JW's decision is informed. The only information they have (and that information is wrong) comes directly from the WTS. And the WTS has lied. Extensively. The JWs are not informed. It is impossible for a JW to make an informed decision.
If any other corporation gave out medical advice and that advice was erroneous, they would be forced to take their product off the market or be forced to correct their wrong information.
The comments on the above story are revealing - there are several JW apologists who claim that EPOs are a suitable and effective treatment for blood loss. That is incorrect - it is false. EPOs, used as the JWs do, are not effective for extreme blood loss and yet the WT still tells their adherents that EPOs are better and more effective.
I don't have a problem with someone refusing a blood transfusion or any other medical treatment. I want that option for myself. But I do have a problem when that decision is based on faulty information. If I decided to refuse a medical procedure because I believed that the procedure was bad, and yet I was given the wrong information to arrive at that decision, then I would be upset and so would all my friends and family who would be effected by that bad information.
