14 Year Old Boy Dies After Refusing Blood Transfusion

I realize that it's a very complex case and I'm really not that familiar with the american judicial system. My problem with this particular case is how the court just emancipated a 14 y/o, is this common practice in the US?



Correctamundo!

Dys-
I'm no lawyer as you can probably tell, my objection was simply that a 14 year old boy died because of a religious conviction he most likely got from his aunt. Can you imagine a boy with a background of drug addicted parent coming into the simple comfort of a religious home? It's no big mystery to me that he became a Jehova's witness. If it were any other religion there would have been a 70% chanse of him living - this doesn't seem very just me me.

I am just curious as to how often emancipation occurs in the US? My experience is that in Norway is rarely, if ever, happens.

This story is Very sad and Just makes me all the more upsett at religion as a whole.....

It reminds me of this story i watched on dateline about a mentally Unstable guy in his 20's Whom His parents were strong beleivers of scientology....

Apparently Scientology doesnt beleive in doctors or Medication and refused to Let their Son Seek the appropriate treatment Despite Repeated Requests From the son they instead just took him to the Church to be "Cured"

Long story Short The Poor Kid Started hearing voices,got delusional and Just completely insane and ended up stabbing his mother to death 80 times and then Tried to kill himself.....Now he's In Mental hospital for the rest of his life and it wasnt just a ploy to get out of jail....There were dozens of doctors who testified and said that if he was on proper anti-psychotic medication it would have never happened....


Well,The story seemed Slightly Similar.....Another ******* Religious Fanatic DIES Because of his goddam "Belief"

I think emancipation is becoming a rather common occurrence in the US. As to what the actual statictics are, I'd have to research it. Quite a few child actors have done this but I would guess those are a different barrel of apples?

I find this an extremely sad situation. The boy may have been mature enough to make this decision and he may not have been. I don't hold the belief of the Jehovah's Witnesses that they cannot accept blood transfusions and I would appreciate it if maybe Neo can give me scripture for this belief?

I don't think there is anything wrong with having faith that God can heal someone. But God did give knowledge to doctors for a reason. :wink:

Added:

Perhaps it is not as common as I thought. I can't find any statistics in the US on this.

For those who otherwise would not know, the prevailing attitude in Skagit County, Washington is that Dennis made a mature and well informed decision.

As for the reasoning involved in the medical use of blood, there has been a fairly exhaustive review on a2k in this thread:
http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=81075

Thanx Neo!

That was an 'interesting' thread (even if I only read the first 7 pages)

Alright - good lad, stick to yer guns, go down with the ship. Not my thing of course, but a real honest-to-goodness born-to-die fanatic (coerced, I guess being a minor and being allowed to act in a non egoistical manner, but nonetheless) is refreshing after all these kids running around like hermit crabs fixing popular sentiment to themselves like aquatic plants to a shell camouflage.

More like him and mayhaps we'd be getting somewhere as a nation rather than being passed back and forth between paternalistic populist executives like a dime store prostitute.

Along with his adopted religious beliefs, I'm sure the reality of the sadness and suffering in this boy's short life played an integral role in his willingness and ability to just let go.
I mean, think of what he went through in fourteen years: abuse, abandonment, the terror and pain of a terminal illness- and on top of that he had the reality to face that even if he did have the transfusion, there was a thirty percent chance he'd die anyway- and if he didn't- he'd face years of hospitals and treatments, etc.

And the thought that he might be going on to something better probably wasn't really a motivation. Don't JW's believe that only 144,000 true believers will achieve paradise? So those odds weren't really in his favor.

Maybe he was just tired of it all. Maybe he just wanted rest and peace and oblivion.

But in terms of the judge having the ability to make the determination that Dennis knew what he was doing and that he was "mature" enough to make this decision- I agree with Coolwhip.
At fourteen- there aren't many kids I've ever met that I'd call mature enough to entrust with that kind of decision-making power-even over their own lives.
Children, especially during adolescence - are swayed by either the need to fit in or the need to rebel. What they choose to do depends on their particular personality traits.
His decision could be looked at as doing either or both of those things - fitting in with his aunt's religious convictions (she being the only one who seemed to ever really care for and about him) or rebelling against society's view of the situation.
Still, I personally understand him making the decision he did, given what his life had been, and what it might potentially be in the future.

Dennis' maturity may be deduced from the opinions of the many who knew him. Before anyone knew he was sick, the local newspaper did a feature story on him and his remarkable recovery from an early childhood of deprivation.

As far as the 144,000 is concerned, the majority of JWs look forward to life on earth, IMO a decidedly more attractive proposition than floating around the universe or whatever reward one might anticipate in heaven.