VANCOUVER (CP) – A lawyer for the Jehovah’s Witness parents of premature sextuplets says the babies shouldn’t have been seized and given blood transfusions without giving the parents a judicial hearing.
Lawyers representing the parents, the provincial attorney general and the Children’s Ministry are in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver arguing over blood transfusions given without the parents’ consent.
The sexuplets were born last January to parents who cannot be named under a publication ban.
Two of the babies died and the other four were seized.
The parents’ lawyer Shane Brady, who is a Jehovah’s Witness, told Chief Justice Donald Brenner that the seizure means there is no fundamental justice available to the parents.
But Kris Chen, acting for the government, says the seizure was about risk – risk of morbidity or mortality.
She says there was a medical emergency and the government had to act.