Skip to main content.
Religion News Blog is a non-profit service providing academics, religion professionals and other researchers with religion & cult news
ReligionNewsBlog

Religion news articles about religious cults, sects, world religions, and related issues

Navigation:
Home | Site Menu | About RNB | RNB Store | Cult FAQ | Cult Experts | Apologetics Index | Cult Information Search Engine
A Random Image
More articles about: Jehovah's Witnesses:

Blood transfusions needed for babies of Jehovah’s Witnesses, court told

The Province, Canada
Mar. 2, 2008
Keith Fraser
www.canada.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Monday March 3, 2008

Government lawyers say that the controversial blood transfusions given to four surviving sextuplets last year were medically necessary and presented a low risk to the infants.

A lawyer for the Jehovah’s Witness parents argued that there was no emergency and there were risks when the premature babies were given transfusions in January 2007.

But Margot Fleming, a lawyer for the director of Child, Family and Community Services, told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Donald Brenner that the approach of the treating physicians was in accord with Canadian law and medical practices. “They sought to provide transfusions only when they thought they were medically necessary.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood

“[T]he Jehovah’s Witnesses organization prohibits the use of blood transfusions. Individual Jehovah’s Witnesses are expected to die or let their children die, rather than break this command, even though the Scriptures nowhere teach that blood transfusions are wrong.”
- Four Dangers of the Jehovah’s Witness Organization

She said while there was no imminent threat of death, there was a risk of serious or permanent harm if they were not given transfusions.

Fleming said one of the two children seized by the ministry after the parents refused transfusions was “clinically very unstable,” requiring morphine sedation to deal with restlessness and other problems. The other child seized suffered a rapid drop in hemoglobin level and “was perhaps in the most urgent need of a transfusion,” she said.

Lawyer Kris Chen, also representing the ministry, told the judge that the evidence of the government’s expert witnesses ought to be preferred over the family’s experts. She described one of the family’s experts, a physician from New Mexico, as being almost “overzealous” in her advocacy of a blood-boosting agent known as erythropoietin or EPO.

The government lawyers made their comments during final submissions following the cross-examination in January of several doctors.

The family’s lawyer, Shane Brady, who is claiming that the parents’ rights were violated by the transfusions, told the judge that his clients chose to refuse the procedures not just out of religious conviction. “The parents were choosing within the range of medical practice. They were exercising reasonable and responsible decisions, religious convictions aside,” he said.

The judge reserved his decision.

Bookmark share or email this Religion News Blog page Bookmark, Share, or Email This Page

 

Read another article Read Another Article

Tags and keywords for this Apologetics Index entry Related News Articles

arrow

RSS Feed Subscribe to Religion News Blog updates

Religion News Find Related Information

Use our custom search engines to find additional research resources on religions and cults:
arrow ApologeticsSearch.com: Search for apologetics articles, books, videos, and other research resources across 135 Christian apologetics websites and blogs.
arrow CounterCultSearch.com: Search for information about (religious) cults, cult-like organizations, and cults experts -- as well as paranormal-, New Age, and pseudoscientific claims -- across 260+ websites, blogs and forums dedicated to cult research, spiritual abuse, ex-cult counseling & support.

Religion News Find Related Religion & Spirituality Books at Amazon.com

Religion News Possibly related... or Most Popular Religion News Articles

Religion News Search Search Religion News Blog