Canadian Sextuplets
2. February, 2007Continuing with my post about religion in the hospital setting, I thought we could have a look at the government of British Columbia, Canda, and it’s mounting battle with the parents of sextuplets who are refusing necessary medical treatment for their babies, based on religious beliefs. This article, from CBC.ca, gives us most of the background on this. The parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and as is well known about Jehovah’s Witnesses, they embrace a strict position when it comes to medical practice. The babies, in need of blood transfusions that the parents were opposed to based on religious grounds, were seized by social workers and given the required medical treatment before being returned to the parents. The parents, outraged, are now suing the government for violating their constitutional rights….
None of this is to say that the parents aren’t heartbroken by what’s happening to their children (two of the six are already dead). In a public statement from the father of the sextuplets (not identified due to publication laws in Canada), the father expresses his and his wife’s perspective on what’s happening:
“[My wife] and I deeply love our babies and want them to live. We continue to be heartbroken about the death of [two of them],” the husband wrote in an affidavit. “We will not, however, consent to blood transfusions. We firmly believe that our creator commands us in scriptures, such as Acts 15:28-29 to abstain from blood products.”
The position of the government is also made clear in this article:
B.C. Minister of Children and Family Development Tom Christensen made it clear that regardless of a family’s religious affiliation, “the obligation is to ensure that a child in need of protection … gets the treatment required,” even if that means the ministry must step in.”
And, to save you the trouble of having to look it up, Acts 15:28-29 has this to say:
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‘It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities,
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namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell.’”
From these lines, I’m not sure that even a strict interpretation of the Bible could justify keeping children from receiving blood transfusions. It should be noted here that I’m not a Bible scholar and, as a Heathen am probably the last person who should go interpreting what I read from the Bible (especially since I’ve sort of broken most – if not all – of the ‘necessities’ listed in these lines). That being said, it looks to me like these lines are talking about meat and blood from animals, and ‘unlawful’ marriages (I’m guessing this would be fornicating out of wedlock). I’m supposing that the folks who wrote this passage didn’t specify blood transfusions because they didn’t exist back then (although that sort of takes the wind out of the divinely inspired by an omniscient god argument); but the passage seems clear to me that they are talking about Pagan practices and pre-marital sex. I don’t see medical efforts to preserve life included here.
Finally, the Associated Jehovah’s Witnesses for Reform on Blood has this to say about the cited Biblical verses (I would recommend reading over the entire page):
That council sent their decision to all congregations: Christians need not keep the code given to Moses, but it is necessary for them to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled [unbled meat] and from fornication. (Acts 15:22-29) The apostles were not presenting a mere ritual or dietary ordinance. The decree set out fundamental ethical norms, which early Christians complied with. About a decade later they acknowledged that they should still keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols as well as from blood … and from fornication. (Acts 21:25)
So even some among the Jehovah’s Witnesses are failing to see the connection here … but not all. In fact, the AJWRB seems to be a focused reform group within the greater Jehovah’s Witness religion, which means that the beliefs expressed by the father of the sextuplets are reasonably established as beliefs held by his faith. Does this mean he is right in his decision? I don’t think so – just because someone cites religious reasons for doing something doesn’t guarantee it’s the right thing to do, and what is ‘right’ is a matter of perspective … the fox thinks he’s right to kill a rabbit, while the rabbit quite likely has a different perspective. I think the father and mother here are doing what they feel is right and, oddly enough they are acting in a way I’ve heard more than a couple Heathens argue for … if the children are fated to live, they will; if not, such is their Wyrd. It should also be pointed out that the parents were advised to abort two of the fetuses, in order to increase the survival chances for four of the children – again holding to their beliefs, the parents did not abort, so it can’t be said that they aren’t ‘pro-life’.
So, even if I disagree with the relevance of the Bible passage cited by the father, I would be inclined to agree that he and his wife are acting in accordance with what they feel is the right thing to do, even if it is costing them children, heartache and suffering. However, so is the State in this matter – no one wants to sit back and watch babies die, no one wants babies to suffer, and the State may have violated its own due process to secure blood transfusions for the children and is now in an actionable position as this law suit demonstrates. Also a part of this issue, as I see it, is the age of reasoning: can a baby, with no knowledge of sin, commit sin? If not, then it would seem that, at heart, these parents are more concerned with making sure that they don’t sin, rather than that their babies don’t sin.
Where are the lines drawn? Should parents be able to refuse life-saving medical treatment for their children? Should parents be able to make religious decisions for children too young to even say the word, ‘religion’, let alone understand what it means? Should the State be allowed to not just intrude on religious decisions, but step in and forcibly remove children from parents without a hearing of some sort? In this case, the State acted to save lives … but if this action went unchallenged, would that embolden the State into thinking that it could do this for other reasons? What if the State chose to remove children from a Heathen or Pagan home, because they felt that the development of the children was somehow imperilled by exposure to rituals and practices the State didn’t understand?
You’ve posed a tough nut of a puzzle, Bernulf. In general, I’m in favor of less government interference, and more individual choice. I’m also in favor of less medical interference in the natural processes of life; and I would rather that parents have the primary responsibility for their children, rather than the State, which is notoriously bad at parenting. So taken together I would prefer that the parents have the final say.
But! Something which the article does not mention, but that I strongly suspect, is that these children were created via fertility treatments. Sextuplets and other multiple births are much more common than they used to be because mothers who are barely fertile are getting these fertility treatments, and part of that process is implanting a dozen eggs at once so that more will have a chance of surviving. If too many survive, excess ones are “culled”, i.e. aborted very early on. It sounds like this couple resisted the culling process.
If this couple is having six children because of fertility treatments, I have no sympathy for them. This couple’s god made them infertile, and they used medical science to get around that. They should expect unpleasant consequences.
I think as Jeff says that this is a tough subject. It’s one I’ve thought about a lot, given that such situations are in the news quite often. Where do the rights of the parents end and those of the child begin? Like Jeff, I might have little sympathy for the parents, but I wonder about the children too. It’s not their fault that their parents have their religious beliefs. But then again, I would not want people of another religion coming down on me for the choices I make as a parent, saying you can’t do this and you must do that. I don’t know what the answer is. I truly don’t.
Jeff, Hrafnkell, thank you for your thoughts on this :-)
Would fertility treatments be permitted in a religion where blood transfusions seem to be forbidden? I did a brief search and couldn’t find a source stating that these folks were part of a fertility treatment program; so if someone is aware of such a source, please share – it would definitely add another angle to this topic!
Jeff, I tend to agree with you when it comes to the issue of government interference and individual choice. I think the lines get murkier when we look at things as a government interference and religion issue. When I first thought about this story, what was running through my mind were questions like, “What if I followed a religion that forbade medical treatment for my children,” and “What if I followed a religion that forbade medical treatment for my children and my religion was wrong.” That’s part of the reason why I really tried to pick apart the cited Bible verse from the sextuplets’ father. Oddly enough, I caught this article, about a Biblical scholar who has decided to address the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ aversion to blood transfusions…he argues that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have got this one wrong and, considering that I was moving along similar thoughts regarding Biblical context, I’m inclined to agree with him.
This ties in with what I mentioned in my article about the age of reasoning when it comes to sin. If I were a devout follower of a religious path that forbade life-saving medical treatment for babies, I’d want to know that there was no chance that my religious path had simply misinterpreted something and decided to err on the side of fundamentalism, before sacrificing my children in the name of my own inability to ask critical questions. As Hrafnkell brings up, “It’s not their fault that their parents have their religious beliefs.”
So, while I still believe the parents are doing what they feel is right, I also have little sympathy for them – they are making their own choices, and are forcing their children to suffer the consequences of their misinterpreted religious belief before their children are even capable of speaking, let alone knowing what religion it is that’s condemned them.
That being said, I still do not think the State had the right to forcibly remove these children – without waiting for the hearing that its own laws establish as proper procedure – and do what it felt was in the best interests of the children. Such action establishes precedent, and as some prominent leaders in the world have already demonstrated, precedents can and do fall into the wrong hands.
I found your discussion interesting. I thought I might make some points clear for you. From a Biblical standpoint, Genesis 9:4-6 should make the reasoning clear: “4 Only flesh with its soul—its blood—YOU must not eat. 5 And, besides that, YOUR blood of YOUR souls shall I ask back. From the hand of every living creature shall I ask it back; and from the hand of man, from the hand of each one who is his brother, shall I ask back the soul of man. 6 Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God’s image he made man.” God requires blood (including that of man as is obvious from this citation) to be poured out. This is what seperates JW’s from other religions considering themselves to be Christian- they take all the texts on a subject and consider their meaning as a whole. Since there is nothing in the Bible that is remotely related to fertility treatments, a witness will have to decide for themself what is the best action. Also, multiple births are still quite rare among women who use fertility treatments. Finally, look up all there is on bloodless medecine and surgery, you will be surprised at the facts if you think that transfusions are necessary.
Matt, thank you for your illuminating comment!
Your explanation for how fertility treatments might be allowed where blood transfusions aren’t makes sense – I appreciate you putting this question of mine to rest. The covenant of providence (Genesis 9:1-11) isn’t quite as obvious in its meaning to me as it is to you, though. It seems more along the lines of dietary control and an admonishment for people to take care of each other than it does a prohibition on blood transfusions.
It seems to me that these verses are talking about how to treat blood that comes from dead creatures, rather than the living people who donate their blood for transfusions; and also mentions eating as the only form of ingestion. The reason I make this point is because of the logic you introduce that, since there is nothing in the Bible about fertility treatments, a JW would have to make the decision personally. If that logic is sound, then it would stand to reason that since there is nothing in the Bible about blood transfusions, this practice must also be a personal choice for JW’s. Does that make sense?
I think I did not make a point clear. Ingestion is not the main issue to JW’s or as we believe, to Jehovah. It is respect for God’s property. He made it clear through these occaisional restatings of His view of blood that it is to be poured out, He is asking it back. Especially in the case of hummans. There was no prohibition of eating human flesh or blood. The command was that it be poured out because Jehovah was asking for it to be returned to him.
Also this is an example of the many protections laid out in the Bible which come from the commands given to men. What I mean to say is, transfusion medicine is substandard to transfusion-free medicine. (‘bloodless’) The dietary and other restrictions of the Mosaic law were millenia ahead of their time for proving protection form disease. Washing food, bleeing it, avoiding certain types of meat. We beleive the Bible to be a sure guide, and a timeless one, as medical science once again is proving correct.
I know we may never agree on this subject, but I appreciate your reasonable manner of discussion.
I wanted to reply to a point made by Bernulf in the original post.
“Also a part of this issue, as I see it, is the age of reasoning: can a baby, with no knowledge of sin, commit sin? If not, then it would seem that, at heart, these parents are more concerned with making sure that they don’t sin, rather than that their babies don’t sin.”
We do not believe these babies, or anyone else, ’sins’ if they have something like this forced upon them. If they were older it might cause some psychological problems, not spiritual ones. We believe it to be unreasonably superstitious to think that a person’s standing with God is affected by the actios of others. These babies are in a ‘good’ :) standing with God because they have had no chace to do anything one way or the other.
“I know we may never agree on this subject, but I appreciate your reasonable manner of discussion.”
I don’t think agreement is the point of discussion, but rather understanding; so we don’t have to agree on this subject, and I thank you for your own reasonable presentation of your perspectives as it’s helping me to understand this issue at greater depth :-)
I also thank you for clarifying your position with regard to blood – I think I understand more clearly. My question would be this: if no blood is actually spilled during transfusion, would that not make a difference? And I know I’m about to come across as being completely dense, but I must also ask whether this affects situations when a person accidentally cuts his or herself?
I think you make a good point about bloodless medicine techniques. I was impressed, when doing a search, that places like USC offer these services. And I would probably prefer something like this myself, if it were available and the doctors felt like it would do more to save my life than would standard techniques. In the case of these babies, then, I guess the question was whether or not such care was available, and whether or not the parents were trying to arrange something like this for their children?
Finally, I thank you for clarifying another major question of mine, regarding the age of reasoning. If the babies are in good standing with Jehovah, and there is no sort of stain or mark on their souls for having had this procedure done on them, would that mean that the parents could have done this from the beginning and still not risked their children?
I believe both your questions are of technicality, and JW’s do not subscribe to this type of thinking with regard to following biblical precepts.
Regarding the parents allowing transfusion, this is actually new idea to me. I intend to do some research. I would encourage you to contact JW’s either locally or HQ’s in Brooklyn NY. Their address is available on their website watchtower.org. You can also ask for more info on the website. This would of course cause someone to come to your door.
Matt, I thank you for your suggestion to make contact with local JW’s, and I appreciate your telling me in advance that such contact would cause someone to come to my door – in all honesty, that would be taking things much further than I want or need to go :-)
I also thank you for answering my questions to the extent you did – as I said before, you did shed some light on things for me. Your point about JW’s not engaging in technicalities when it comes to the Bible is answer enough for me on those questions that require that kind of thinking. I’ve enjoyed this discussion, and I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to add your thoughts and perspectives to this topic :-)