80+ branch davidian cult members died in waco, texas.
250,000+ #jehovahswitnesses have died refusing blood.
stop this #cult!
Here is a link to the group's (AAWA) webpage: http://aawa.co/mission-statement/
The following is a quote from its mission statement: However, it also seeks to ensure that all of its activities [exposing the Watchtower] are pursued in a responsible and productive manner.
Her tweet certainly isn't supporting the group's mission to act responsibly.
first 30 min announcing a collection of bibles collected from r & f that is to go on display at bethel.
also accounts of how they "miraculously" received bibles that they didn't think they could get - eg.
geneva bible.. now - watchtower study review as there is no meeting tomorrow..
I guess insinuating that sisters are much harder on their bibles than brothers.
In my 40+ years of experience, the sisters were 'harder' on their bibles because they used them more than the brothers.
Good comment Cedars: "You could imagine the uproar if a politician on camera described the appearance of any item as “woman proof.”" Also, Jackson's wife looks like she's only in her twenties. Anyone know her age?
first 30 min announcing a collection of bibles collected from r & f that is to go on display at bethel.
also accounts of how they "miraculously" received bibles that they didn't think they could get - eg.
geneva bible.. now - watchtower study review as there is no meeting tomorrow..
Do you mean to say that they actually compared fifty shades of grey before deciding on this ?
LOL! Very good Dantes!
Fading Begins--thank you!
This has been asked but I do not believe answered: what does "sister proof" mean?
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/religious-boy-fights-court-for-right-to-die-20130917-2tx5u.html.
this is tragic.
the boy is 17, and earlier this year the courts ruled that he was to be forced a transfusion.
Law are simply cultural mores that become have so well established that they are codified
Wow...I have been reversing letters and words all morning long! ...need more coffee.
Make that "Laws are simply cultural mores that have become so well established that they are codified."
Or better yet, I think I will head out the door for a pre-football game mimosa at my daughter's brunch. GO SEAHAWKS!!!! Kah!!! Kah!!!
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/religious-boy-fights-court-for-right-to-die-20130917-2tx5u.html.
this is tragic.
the boy is 17, and earlier this year the courts ruled that he was to be forced a transfusion.
I don't think there is any rational basis for any given morality. It's all culturally contingent or constructed and to be argued over
The above is an extreme form of cultural relevancy, and fortunately, it is rejected even by the vast majority of cultural anthropologists. One of my undergraduate professors told the class of his experience of working with a colleague to perform an ethnography of a certain culture. They discovered rank child abuse (very, very young girls). His colleague didn't want to report it to the government because he thought is 'was just their culture,' and he used SLB's argument above to justify his position.
Law are simply cultural mores that become have so well established that they are codified. Therefore, all laws stem from morality.
Hence, using SLB's logic, all laws are irrational, culturally contingent, and "to be argued over."
The flaw in his reasoning is to say that there is no "rational basis for any given morality." Of course there is a rational basis because societies as a whole function as rational groups who are seeking their best interest. That's why world-wide mores (e.g., rejection of murder) are the most rational of all.
The legal concept that the state must protect its assets, including its human assets (children), stems from a moral norm held by, as far as I know, all nations. It's held by all nations because it is in their rational best interest to do so.
The only issues that are argued are the ones we have discussed here: when, how, under what circumstances, etc., the state should intervene.
Edited to add: SLB's position can also justify the anarchist's actions, which is something my poor city (Seattle) is all too familiar with.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/religious-boy-fights-court-for-right-to-die-20130917-2tx5u.html.
this is tragic.
the boy is 17, and earlier this year the courts ruled that he was to be forced a transfusion.
I don't agree with forcing people to have treatments they don't want just to satisfy society's norms and standards.
Unless some really new concept is posted, this will be my last post on this thread. SLB and I must agree to disagree, but I appreciate that he has put a lot of thought into his position. However, I take issue with the above statement.
Physicians and hospitals do not resort to the courts just to fulfill some power trip. JWs are well researched and written about, and as medical professionals, interested in upholding both the priciples of autonomy and their own oath, they carefully consider their options before seeking to force treatment on anyone.
Hence, they do not act "just to satisfy society's norms and standards." They act to achieve the highest ideals of morals and ethics on the planet.
That is why these difficult cases are referred for an in-house bioethics conference, and all posible courses of action and treatment recommedations are vigorously debated by a team of bioethicists who have made it their life mission to seek the patient's best long-term and short-term welfare. I have been present when two ethicists clashed regarding a JW patient, and I can assure you, both parties argued their positions passionately and well, to the point that I think there are some residual hard feelings (yes, they take it that seriously). Therefore, I reject SLB's charaterization of their goal, a characterization that trivializes and minimalizes the position of those that disagree with him.
Lastly, SLB is absolutely correct that this is not a "right to die" issue. The boy is not seeking to die because he is seeking treatment, and he is compliant with his other treatment recommendations. While this tack was taken in the past, no serious ethicist would frame the issue so now.
Edited to add:
TD responded while I was crafting my response, and he adtroitly tables a key issue, namely the distinction between the two standards (legal/medical).
To meet the clinical informed consent standard, minors refusing life-saving medical treatment (LSMT) need only have capacity, understand they might die, and not be coerced.[1] Conversely, the MM doctrine requires they be super-functioning minors who qualify to be exempted from the law of majority because they exhibit indicia of a well-functioning adult both in their day-to-day lives and in their medical decisions. This difference in the standards is predictable since medical informed consent applies even to routine, daily medical matters while the MM minor doctrine is most often invoked in high-stakes public policy or life-and-death medical decisions. It is reasonable to hold a minor seeking the right to refuse LSMT to a higher standard, [2] and the higher legal standard explains why two normally functioning Jehovah’s Witness adolescents over seventeen years-old failed to meet the test.[3] In sum, the MM doctrine capacity standard requires more of minors than the average-adolescent-on-the-street standard used by the medical community.
[1]See supra Part II.a.
[2] Paul S. Appelbaum, Assessment Of Patients’ Competence To Consent To Treatment, 357 N. Engl. J. Med 1834, 1836 (2007); see also Lantos, supra note 44 (noting that as applied to adolescents, “the more serious the consequences of decision, the more rigorous that evaluation and standards for [decision-making capacity] should be.”).
[3]Application of Long Island Jewish Med. Ctr., 147 Misc. 2d 724, 557 N.Y.S.2d 239 (Sup. Ct. 1990); see also In re E.G., supra note 56.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/religious-boy-fights-court-for-right-to-die-20130917-2tx5u.html.
this is tragic.
the boy is 17, and earlier this year the courts ruled that he was to be forced a transfusion.
But you are fine with the same boy choosing to refuse blood a few weeks later when he turns eighteen? Some psychiatric patients may be unable to express a coherent wish, in which case something must be done. That's not the case with this boy, the state simply disagreed with his view.
Oh, I can assure you that these patients violently and loudly express their treatment rejections! They are not drooling idiots. Additionally, the treatment to which I am referring includes four-point restraints on hospital gurneys and electro-shock therapy.
And now I'm a little confused. You have repeatedly said that age (arbitrary lines in the sand) is not your issue, but the power of the state. But now you raise his close proximity to eighteen as an issue.
Nevertheless, I don't care how close he is to eighteen. As my oncologist friend posted, this particular cancer is highly treatable. Likely, the forced blood transfusions he has already had while the appeal is pending (and until his upcoming eighteenth birthday) were (will be) enough to allow him to have the more aggressive cancer treatments. If so, then they have already saved his life.
However, if he had a disease that had little chance of survival (unlike here), and that would require numerous blood transfusions well past his birthday (unlike here), then I would be less likely to agree with a court order.
Why should the state have such power to decide whose views in respect of their own body are valid or not.
Here, age makes a dramatic difference. If the person is a minor, the state, under doctrine of parens patriae, is required to step in. If a minor's parents are making bad decisions for them, whether that be too agressive discipline, leaving them home unattended to too young of an age, or making life-threatening medical decisions, the state is required to step into the shoes of the parents, and to make those decisions.
As I wrote earlier, I do not agree that adult JWs are coerced in the necessary extent to overide their treatment objections, and the state should not step in.
Of course. Why should the state have the power to decide whether we live or die?
There are easily hundreds, if not thousands, of people around the world, saved from suicide but now living productive lives, who are happy your view is the extreme outlier in the world.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/religious-boy-fights-court-for-right-to-die-20130917-2tx5u.html.
this is tragic.
the boy is 17, and earlier this year the courts ruled that he was to be forced a transfusion.
Forcing a seventeen year old to have a(ny) medical treatment they don't want to have is nothing short of barbaric in my view
Hhmmm...must disagree SBF.
Every civilized nation in the world forces treatment on people. Using your logic, every civilized nation in the world is barbaric.
They force treatment on the mentally ill when they, for whatever reason, seriously diverge from the treatment plans, and it gets them back on track. I have personally witnessed this multiple times. It saves the patients' mental health, and often their physical lives, and they are most appreciative afterwards.
There is no difference in forcing mental health treatment and life-sustaining blood transfusions. Both are groups of patients are not in a position to make the decision for themselves, and they need intervention.
I simply find it ethically problematic to say that a seventeen year old should not have the right to determine what happens to his own body
Some seventeen year olds are granted that right. In fact, most are because they and their parents are open to listening to all medical advice and considering all options. Sometimes, the parents and minors just disagree with their providers, and generally those decisions are respected.
However, if a parent or a minor said they refused treatment because they thought they would shortly be raptured to the tail of Haley's comet, the courts would likely not respect that medical choice. JW's reasonings against blood are hardly more rational. In such cases, one can argue that it is ethically improper for society not to intervene, and a possible violation of the physician's ethical duty to protect the patient, even from themselves.
Basically, this kid was an epic fail on the maturity-o-meter.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/religious-boy-fights-court-for-right-to-die-20130917-2tx5u.html.
this is tragic.
the boy is 17, and earlier this year the courts ruled that he was to be forced a transfusion.
Well if that counts as coercion, since every baptised Witness is subject to disfellowshipping, are all JWs are "coerced" to refuse blood?
Is there any doubt about that? What else are sanctions for noncompliance if not coercion?
SBF raises the very same question that I recently debated with a pediatric bioethicists after a presentation I made at a local children's hospital.
As I stated in my post, the issue turns legally on whether the person is a legally autonomous person, over the age of majority. If they are, they have the right to subject themselves to a religion. It is not coercion if they subject themselves to the blood doctrine, and the law protects their decisions, both good and bad. They have the right to reject blood or believe in Santa Clause.
Those under the age of majority do not subject themselves, so it is coercion, even if the "cocooned" young person believes the theology. In such cases, the state must intervene to protect a minor's life if the parents, or the minor, are making bad decisions.
Or, as an oncologist friend just publicly posted on my fb page regarding this case: i have no issue when adults make decisions for their care no matter how stupid, but when it comes to vulnerable populations lik e children and teenagers, i have no tolerance for the church denying critical healthcare to them! and by the way, Hodgkin's lymphoma is one of the highly curable cancers and has been the poster child for advancement in science and medicine
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/religious-boy-fights-court-for-right-to-die-20130917-2tx5u.html.
this is tragic.
the boy is 17, and earlier this year the courts ruled that he was to be forced a transfusion.
In my view autonomy in matters relating one's own body is a very important principle, not to be disguarded lightly.
Legal
Valid point SBF; however, the young man’s autonomy is not being trampled because he is not yet autonomous. The state cannot trample what does not exist.
He will be autonomous when he turns 18 years old, and can make his own decisions. Until that time, his parents are his medical decision makers. If the parents are negligent medical decision makers, the state must step into their shoes.
A legal alternative to the above scenario is to rule him a mature minor, thereby granting him his legal autonomy early. To be deemed a mature minor, he must demonstrate adult-level decision making. Adults exercising good decision-making skills do ask the questions Besty outlined, and more. Being “cocooned” has hampered his ability to make good decisions by restricting his access to quality medical information, making him pro-blood information adverse, etc.
Nevertheless, even if he is a mature minor, his decision is coerced by shunning. Coerced decisions, made under duress, fail informed consent. Like adults, mature minors must provide valid informed consent to accept/reject treatment. Since he cannot provide valid informed consent, and his parents are making negligent medical decisions, the state must step in.
His minority is the dividing line that creates the different outcome between JW adults and minors in the coercion calculation. Adults are autonomous. They have the legal right to join a church, accept its theology, and subject themselves to shunning. Additionally, adults can refuse to exercise their informed consent rights, and can defer to a doctor's decision or a family member's decision.
Minors are not autonomous, and they lack the legal right to subject themselves to religious coercion; hence the state must step in.
Two different legal theories, but the same result: the state must step in.
Enforcement
This was an appeal from the decision that granted the Children’s Hospital the authority to transfuse. Likely, he has been receiving blood transfusions during this time, and most hospitals sedate the minor.
