Link to relevant story: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/s...ss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r1:c0.213857:b26086930 These cases make for interesting legal precedent as they attempt to resolve conflicts in the highest law in the land: The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Specifically: the freedom of conscience and religion (as one of the fundamental freedoms) versus the right to life, liberty and security of person. source: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html Also at issue is whether a capable person (if a minor is considered a capable person) can make his (or her) own medical decisions without the government's intervention. This aspect may strike a nerve here seeing there are many minors on the site, and some of you may face the threat of treatment against your beliefs and will. The supreme court may have settled the legal debate, but does this represent the right decision from a moral standpoint? Should "A.C." still be alive today?
When it comes down to it, she didnt want blood. If she wanted to die, let herself die. Its her choice.
i agree if she wants to die sod her:S i think once you get get to the age you can understand what life is and are capable of understanding and self action and thought if you want to die then go for it...stops over population :S ( i can be heartless but it is a freedom i believe in)
OK I agree that if she had the capacity to make an informed decision on her treatment then her wishes should have been acknowledged irrespective of her age. I completely disagree with Adam and djt in some instances, with respect to giving people the choice to kill themselves. Perhaps its an indication of my profession, but I believe in life...and I dont think that someone who attempts suicide has the capacity to decide upon withdrawl of treatment. Obviously this girl is completely different because she didnt want to die, but she understood it was the risk of not having a transfusion.
Hmmm. It's hard where minors are concerned. I definitely would say that her parents don't have the right to make a decision that would get her killed, and if she were older and terminally ill she should have the right to refuse treatment (I know Crohn's disease sucks, it's almost killed my mom many a time, but I don't think it's really terminal nowadays), but if someone who's too young to sign her own medical consent forms wants to make decisions that may kill her? Huh. I don't know. I have a hard time wrapping my head around someone refusing a life-saving treatment in the first place, especially when she's so young. (Is it really "ingesting blood" if it goes straight into your veins, and it's only when you're going to bleed to death otherwise? It's not like there's a group of highwaymen out there, holding people up for a pint of blood, to be served in wine glasses or something. People give it willingly 'cause they'd like other people to not bleed to death! C'mon, guys.) I do think the medical team acted correctly, though, from a purely legal standpoint. Letting someone who's not old enough to sign consent forms (or write a binding will) die because she didn't want treatment seems like a good way for them to get fried in a lawsuit. I'm sure she understood the weight of her decisions, but where's the cutoff? What if she were 15? 14? A particularly mature 10 year old? How young is too young to decide you'd rather die than go through a medical procedure? I had friends that, at 13, acted like they were in their 20s, and knew people in their 20s that I'm surprised ever managed to graduate high school. Age does not indicate maturity, but it's hard to legislate based on a person's maturity. So much seems to be left to a court's discretion, here - how mature is mature enough to decide you're willing to die, and how do you even decide that? I don't think she should have been subjected to a procedure she didn't want to go through if it weren't necessary to save her life, no. I don't think that sets a good precedent. But if I were in the doctor's shoes, and I had a 16 year old girl with internal bleeding who's insisting that she'd rather die than get a blood transfusion, I'd probably go with the urge to save her and deal with the consequences later, too. But I've never really read much of medical ethics, so I'm not sure what most doctors would make of the situation!
The fact of the matter, Her religion forbides blood transfusions. As stupid as it might seem to some, the doctors should have respected her decision and not procede with the blood transfusion. Its a violation to her 'freedom of religion'.
I think you've highlighted a good point ghostdog. Because the media always kicks the medical profession in the balls. At the end of the day a girl was dying and a decision was made. If they had decided to not treat her the headlines would read "doctors watch girl bleed to death". Hindsight is an amazing thing and I'm sure if the doctors treating her knew what they know about her now, they may have acknowledged her decision. Patient autonomy is crucial to medicine and Jehovahs witnesses provide many ethics lessons for doctors.
I highly doubt that would be the case. The media wouldnt dig into that because everything went according to plan. The reason why its in the news now is because they didnt go to the family's wishes.
There is a probelm with blood transfusions and religion in general. Most of te times doctors dont know what you are and preform them anyway because their goal is to save lives. When someone is comatose with no real identification, its hard to say "Well mybe we should wait to find out if this dying girl is JW in order to give her a blood trasnfusion." Doctors get a bad wrap, They either save a life the wrong way, or let someone die the right way. Just be glad your alive to practice your religion a day more.
Ahh... Jehovah's Witness. What a bunch of crack pots. They should say it like it is ...Jehovah "Nitwits" Some members of my family were involved with them, thank myself (I don't believe in an all mighty god) that I saw through them and never got involved with them. I've seen too many familys broken up and destroyed because of their beliefs, and this isn't the first time a child has died because of these idiots. SAD. :dry:
Someone being allowed to die is never the plan. Its so much easier for someone (i dont mean you, I just mean in general) to critisise when they arent the ones making the decision. A 14 year old girl will die without a blood transfusion which she is refusing. Doctors must act quickly and in the best interest of the patient. She is a minor and doctors must have felt she was not competent to make life or death decisions. So they saved her life. Should that doctor be struck off for performing a procedure which he/she felt was in the best interest of the patient...no is my opinion. Its pretty tough making those decisions.
There's a case on point... Malette v Shulman, where the Court upheld a charge of battery from a Jehovah's Witness who was given a blood transfusion while she was unconscious after a car accident, because the doctor ignored a card in her wallet that specifically witheld consent for such a procedure. This Canadian case is probably distinguishable since the plaintiff is a minor; although, if the girl's parents/guardians also expressly refused the treatment, I don't see how that works. Of course, Canadian law has always been sorta weird
I think other rights should take prescedence over the right to religion, especially when concerning cults like Jehovah's witnesses.
Either way the Doctors lose, if they give the transfusion the Jehovah's Witness will complain. If they don't give the transfusion and the patient dies, there's likely to be an inquiry and then this question will be raised anyway. Considering that, I think they should give the transfusion to the patient, at least they won't die.
I don't know if it truly was "her choice". Many people, including some people here, were brought up in a religion that for one reason or another stopped following. You followed it when you were young because your parents brought you up in it, so that's all you know. Only when you were older could you truly make the decision whether you believed the religion or not. Was the girl truly making an informed decision? I won't try to tear apart every JW belief, but I will say that bible passages frequently quoted on the issue, Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:10, and Acts 15:29, were written for a different time, when there were other "issues", and I seriously doubt it was addressing the clean and successful lifesaving procedures using blood transfusion. Where have we seen this before? Oh gee, the taken out of context passages used to "prove" homosexuality is wrong. While I don't follow Christianity any more, it seems to me that time and time again this Jesus fellow was all over teaching "love / help one another", and my mind boggles trying to figure out why he wouldn't want blood transfusions to save lives, and instead would rather we squabbled over the semantics of 8th generation translations. And people wonder why I stopped going to church. As far as parent / child rights to refusing healthcare vs. the healthcare industry's duty to save lives. There was another highly publicized case that happened recently in Canada. There was a baby, A, who had heart problems and needed a heart transplant. There was another baby, B, who was very sick. B's parents wanted doctors to kill their baby so that B's heart could be given to A. Doctors refused because a) you don't get to say who gets transplanted organs, b) they're not in the buisness of killing babies. So both families were crying and pleading in front of the media. As it turned out B recovered and is now living at home with her parents. Ooopsies. But don't worry, another baby, C, died and A got a heart. But what about C's parents that lost their child? Where's the tugging at the heartstrings over that baby?
I can't help but look at situations like these and wonder what medical ethics has to say on the matter of negative responsibility. Simply put, negative responsibility is where an agent is responsible for the consequences of inaction. Do you kill a patient when you honour a do not resuscitate order? An example that would imply some culpability would be not rescuing a man overboard when the remaining crew is perfectly able to do so. A key difference between these two scenarios the known or presumed will of the victim. Even if the man overboard was unconscious it should not, baring exceptional circumstances, require a second thought to provide assistance. The individual in this case, only identified as A.C., did not want this blood - not that she wanted to die, or was obviously mentally ill, but rather it was against her beliefs. But at what age, or passing of examination, should a person be qualified to make such a permanent medical decision? At 18 years of age one can vote in a federal election, and are considered to have attained the age of majority in Manitoba (the province where this occurred). At 16 you can join the reserve, and, despite it being unlikely to be called out until older, die for your country. Until recently it was law that at 14 an individual could consent to sex provided it was not anal sex, nor was either party in a position of power or influence over the other (now the age has been raised to 16). Given this spread how could it be expected that we just let A.C., just 14 at the time, die? To add a semi-related piece, the "some of you may face the threat of treatment against your beliefs and will" was alluding to so-called reparative therapy. As much as it may be nice to protect JW children from themselves we should also be sensible to allowing minors to refuse some forms of treatments forced upon them. My take: It would be wrong to allow people to indirectly cause their own deaths, great suffering, or permanent disability, if they are not capable of grasping the consequences and without being able to justify why they must suffer. While individuals may be different in mental development a guideline should be in place to avoid mere shopping for psychiatrists to back up an assertion of medical consent. Regardless of whether she abandons her faith later on, if at the time she was capable of understanding the consequences and why she will willing let herself suffer, it is only right that she be allowed to die.
