Here's A Can Of Worms For Ya...

Boy who refused treatment on religious grounds dies

<snip>

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- A few hours after a judge ruled that a 14-year-old Jehovah's Witness sick with leukemia had the right to refuse a blood transfusion that might have helped him, the boy died, a newspaper reported.

Dennis Lindberg died Wednesday night at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, his father, Dennis Lindberg Sr., told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hospital spokeswoman Teri Thomas said she could not confirm or deny anything about the case at the request of the boy's legal guardian, his aunt Dianna Mincin.

Earlier Wednesday, Skagit County Superior Court Judge John Meyer had denied a motion by the state to force the boy to have a blood transfusion. The judge said the eighth-grader knew "he's basically giving himself a death sentence." "I don't believe Dennis' decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision," the judge said during the hearing. "I don't think Dennis is trying to commit suicide. This isn't something Dennis just came upon, and he believes with the transfusion he would be unclean and unworthy."

Doctors had given Dennis a 70 percent chance of surviving the next five years with the transfusions and other treatment, the judge added. Doctors diagnosed the boy's leukemia in early November. They began chemotherapy at Children's Hospital, but stopped a week ago because his blood count was too low, the Skagit Valley Herald reported. The boy refused the transfusion on religious grounds.

However, his birth parents, Lindberg and Rachel Wherry, who do not have custody and flew from Boise, Idaho, to be at the hearing, believed their son should have had the transfusion and suggested he had been unduly influenced by his aunt, who is also a Jehovah's Witness.

The aunt has declined to talk about the case.

<snip>

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/29/jehovahs.witness.ap/index.html

Just plain fucking beyond words...

:banghead::nuke::banghead:

On what basis does the judge allow a minor to make a life and death decision?

It would be different if the kid was at least 18, and not under the influence of his aunt.

"Unclean and unworthy" my ass!

:shrug:

This is crazy.

It means the right to go to hell in a handbasket, so to speak, if you choose. He made a risky choice, no different from if he decided to go rock climbing or white-water rafting.

My 13 year old niece might wanna drive her parents Mini-Cooper to the mall and buy some beer, but she's not free to do it. And if she tried, both she and her parents could be held liable.

:shrug:

Driving on PUBLIC roads (not private ones) or buying alcohol are both illegal for your niece under current laws. And after all this boy DID have to go before a judge.

Just as the freedom of speech has reasonable limits ("fire" in a crowded theater) it's long past time we began to seriously look at how far one's freedom of religion goes. Does it include the right to kill a child?

Amongst all the rights, currently available or not, that are possible to restrict or grant, the most important has to be the right to control your own life, and that includes taking steps which may end it. How many of you at 14 would have even considered this decision? The fact that he did shows that he is capable of making it. Did he make it in a manner consistent with my own, or most other people's, priorities? Hell no - frankly I think he's as wrong as wrong can be. But I'm not him. If I say he's wrong then people can say I'm wrong if I don't want to face years of agony and bedridden hopelessness and prefer to die. If we say he can't control his own life then we are abdiciating any credibility when we want to control ours.

14 Schmourteen! That's easily old enough to understand a blood transfusion, and we can be damn sure the doctors made it clear to him what he was risking by refusing one. It's not like some magical transformation would have occurred to him in the next 3+ years to make him any more capable of understanding a simple question like that.

is how long he lived with his aunt to be programmed with JW theology. Is a 14-year-old who has been hammered with harmful unquestionable dogma able to make the same level of rational decision as one who hasn't?

I mean if by definition people who are indoctrinated cannot make rational decisions based on their own criteria - as warped and strange as those may be - then we must protect them and larger society and commit them all to mental health facilities.

I'm not exactly the number one defender of the rationality of religious belief around here but that's going a bit far even for me. Being indoctrinated into religion is a powerful emotional weight sure. But it can be and has been broken, by people younger and older than this guy. It also - far more often - is never broken and remains a lifelong commitment and deeply held belief. That I consider it utterly and totally wrong is not the point. By the criteria of a thinking, sentient human being it is more important that his blood remains intact than his life does. If he cannot make that decision about his religious priorities, harming or forcing choices on nobody else remember, because they disagree with normally accepted ones, then I cannot make my own decisions about my religious priorities if they, as they do, disagree with the normally accepted ones. I cannot but concede to others a freedom I ask for myself, and asked for at about that age as it happens.

People do what people do.

Relative terms such as rational and irrational can't be used when discussing something like this. It just doesn't factor in. Choice is choice. Period. Everyone grows up with this or that dogma being forced on them. Even if you raise a kid with no boundaries at all, technically that's still programming them. We're all free to the extent of the limits of existence. Every action has a consequence. No matter what your reason, if you don't want a blood transfusion, then that's that. I would bet that none of us knew this kid, so he's really just a theoretical person to us. We don't get to make his particular choices in his particular circumstance.

As I noted in my first post, no one can argue that there are not reasonable limits to freedom of speech. It's not being totalitarian or anti-Constitution to say so - as you know, the shouting "fire" in a crowded theater example came from the Supreme Court itself.

So what about freedom of religion? Is it absolute, or are there limits? Where do we draw the line?

The cold, hard cynic in me wants to say I have no problem with this. One less religious nutter around to propagate the crazy belief that somehow having a blood transfusion makes baby Jesus cry. But the compassionate side of me thinks this didn't have to happen, and shouldn't have happened.

I'm not saying this could lead to something else. I'm saying I want the right to make decsions about my own life, including how it ends if appropriate, based on my own personal priorities. This is not an analogy to what he did, it is completely and exactly what he did.

the decision to overrule his objection would be up to the boy's legal guardian. If it is the JW aunt, then he won't get the transfusion. If it is his parents then they should be able to force him to get treatment.


In an even weirder case there was a guy who accidentally crashed into an old woman. The woman being a JW refused any blood transfusion and subsequently died. So the guy was charged with manslaughter. Is that charge warranted when the woman would have lived but refused treatment? I wouldn't think so, but he got charged anyway.

if they were beating the kid few would feel it improper for society to intervene

if they were letting him go whitewater rafting few would think it proper to intervene


I think it is less a question of freedom of religion and more a question of society's rights and responsibilities as implemented through government. Most progressives believe that benevolent populist programs to promote the general health, education, and welfare of all are a good thing.

The anti-government libertarian types object to such not so much because they hate people and think they should all twist in the wind, but they hate intrusiveness into personal lives and carry that to extremes. They'd rather do without traffic laws than have to tolerate gun laws. They'd rather do without regulation of consumer product safety than pay taxes. They feel that any regulation of anything is one step away from Big Brother telling you every move to make.

To me it it is not so much a question of the religious freedom aspect but of the limits on what society should do in the name of looking out for all. I tend to think that providing services and educating people how to take advantage of them is a good thing, but forcing them to do so is a bad thing. The sticky wicket is when someone is heavily influenced by another - in this case a minor influenced by family with what we consider goofy ideas; in other cases adults under the spell of cult leaders. I don't buy the idea that being 18 makes one suddenly able to make such decisions and being 14 makes one incapable of independent thought. I thought it sad when all those people drank Jim Jones' Kool Aid, and its sad that this kid made the decision he did. Whether society should have intervened in either case is, as the OP states, a can of worms.

The reason I tend not to use the religious aspect as a deciding factor is that I consider all religions to be superstitious nonsense. Some are just more wacko than others. Whether the Jehovah's Witnesses are any more or less a legitimate religion that Jim Jones or David Karesh's cults is immaterial.

Jones and Karesh both caused the deaths of lots of children. If saying in this case it was proper to keep hands off is correct, then are those cases not also ones where it is just fine that all those kids died?

of over a hundred thousand Iraqis that have died since Bush* invaded..Sort of lets the US government off the hook wouldn't you say?

at Waco. If you don't like my use of Waco as example, pick another - there are plenty. Let's not start a tangential debate. The point was that in one case people seem to think that a "phony" religion has no right to influence people to be stupid in the face of imminent death, but in another a "legitimate" religion does. I find that contradictory.

While I confess to some very minor and slight libertarian tendencies, it's not in the manner you describe. Should we have intervened with Koresh - yes because he threatened, and ultimately caused the death of, others. He did so by actions that a normal rational person would see as having a very high risk of causing harm to others. Whitewater rafting may be dangerous, but for the vast majority of the time it is completed safely without a hitch. The same can never be said of stockpiling an arsenal and holding off law enforcement from your bunker.

The same CANNOT be said of refusing a blood transfusion when you ahve leukemia but ONLY to YOU personally. It harms no-one else.

The same CAN be said, as much as I loathe and scorn the ideas it has, of indoctrinating people as JWs. It's not that being a Jehovah's Witness per se has a high mortality risk, so converting someone to that cult, a minor or not, is not something where it is appropriate for government to intervene - at least as long as that government values religious freedom.

The boy hurt only himself - and in fact by his own (yes wrong to me) criteria helped himself actually.

The boy's aunt did not pursue actions which a normal rational person woulds see as having a very high risk of casuing harm to others.

There is then no basis on which a government that respects choice, religious freedom and personal self-direction could have or should have intervened.


I am sorry the kid died. He needn't have. But he made that choice, and I can't ask for the same choice if I deny him his.

EDIT - woops mixed up cannot and can

14 years old? he was just a kid!

we don't allow people to *vote* until they're 18 but this kid was allowed to make this decission to end his own life--based on religious beliefs???



no no no no no no no. this NEVER should have happened.

once having violated one of the basic taboo's of JW belief system.

His body would have been once and forevermore contaminated.

I certainly do not share this belief system, but everyone has something he or she is willing to die for.

For me, it is the deconstruction of the last 6 years in America. Someone else might say, "No, no, Nathan Hale. You must compromise your beliefs in order to perpetuate your life -- at any cost.

It's a fundamental existential issue.

"His body would have been once and forevermore contaminated."

whatever! he would have grown up and possibly thought "thank god that judge didn't let my crazy aunt talk me into suicide!"


"everyone has something he or she is willing to die for."

if 14 year olds are so capable of making such important decissions why the fuck don't we let them drive, vote, marry, or play the goddamn lottery!

Children are not property of the state. His wishes and those of his aunt should be honored.

Creeps me out the same people who disagreed with the Schiavo decision and believe 14-year-old can be trusted with decisions on terminating a pregnancy think the government should step in here simply because it involves a religion they don't like.

Kind of like those Freepers who crow about freedom of religion until you mention Wiccans.

Honor the patient's wishes.

do you have any kids?

how YOUNG can someone be in order to make a life or death decision for themselves in your opinion? can they be 12? how about 10?

you willing to let a five year old child make that decision for his/her self just so you can stand on your principles? because that child has been taught some religious blabla and the concept of floating around with jesus is desirable?

lets say you grow up and have a child someday. and your child is depressed. and at 14 years of age he overdoses. and is in the emergency room, about to have his stomach pumped. and manages to tell the doctors not to touch him--he prefers to die. are you gonna stand aside and tell the doctors you want them to honor your son's wishes? or will it fucking hit you like a brick that this kid is a kid and doesn't yet have the mental capacity (reasoning) to make such a permanent and final decision.

fourteen years old--14 stewie!
he can decide what kind of car he wants to drive when he's 16
he can decide he wants to be an artist (today, but tomorrow--maybe a zookeeper because he likes animals too)
he can decide if he wants to go to turnabout with the girl who asked him just so he can see the girl he really likes
he can decide if he likes cigarettes or dope or neither
he can decide which teacher is a bitch and which one is an ally
he can decide if he wants another slice of pizza
or if he wants to spend the day in his room reading
or if he wants to hang out with his best friend on saturday
or if he should wear the jeans with the hole in the knee again

but when he makes the decision to die
there is no car at 16, no artwork, no dances, no experimentation, no lasting friendships with teachers, no pizza, no reading, no best friends, no blue jeans. and if it was six months later or a month later he might have made a different decision.

what's the most important decision you made when you were 14?

my life altering decisions at 14 were how i should rearrange my room, which guy was i going to go out with, should i ditch class again, contacts or glasses, does this shirt make me look fat?

if you think a 14 year old having an abortion or terri schiavo is any kind of comparison to a young teenager being given permission by a court to kill himself in the name of religious beliefs then i believe you should do some rethinking.


"Children are not property of the state."
property no. but their health and welfare is the responsibility of adults. that aunt was so busy being true to her fucking religious beliefs she allowed (and probably encouraged) this kid to end his life.

the first person the cops
question is the parents or
legal guardian. They can be
held responsible for the MINOR's
actions. The same should apply
here. A 14 year old is not allowed
to vote, to drive, to serve in the
military because they are NOT mature
enough to handle these types of
decisions. A life and death decision
is a decision for a mature adult, not
for a child.

the "mature adult" is the aunt, and she has the right to impose the death decision?

Who decides which "mature adult" should make the decision?

has the boy's welfare most at heart.

if he so thoroughly believed it would taint him, would he have been psychologically damaged for life if forced to have the transfusion? Maybe it WAS a "wise judge."

I think it a horrible story. But still a can of worms.

from the transfusion (from being brainwashed) can be treated or reversed later--can't do much for the kid when he's dead, however.

if she has been appointed
legal guardian, her JOB is the
HEALTH and well-being of the
child. It is not her job to
base decisions on her religion,
regardless if the boy is at the
time a practicer of the same religion.
He may grow out of that religion or
he may stay in it with age. If she made
the decision for him, he would never
have the chance to change his mind.
I do not know if she would have made
the same decision. I think that the
boy should have been saved and the
religious issues resolved later.

for abortion. The propriety of those laws aside, a minor can go before a judge and convince the judge that she is mature enough to make the decision. This is kind of like that.

It was probably on appeal, too. The boy may have died with the treatment, too.

He made a mature impression on the judge - at least we know that - if he had seemed to be too much under the domination of his aunt, the judge might have decided differently, so there was always that chance. If I were the judge, I'd have been tempted not to follow the law and to appoint him a guardian. No one knows if a 14 year old Jehovah's Witness is going to stay in that religion for life.

There are other beliefs about death than the 1 I hold, and I wish the best to Dennis and his family, friends (yes, I know he died, "the best" meaning whatever happens to him next).

We have at least one other set of laws that say that a minor, even minors younger than this young man, has final say over a medical decision that has a risk of serious consequences, possibly (but rarely) death, and that the parents and guardians do *not* need to be informed. Instead, a judge acts in loco parentis to grant permission for the child to make the decision. Perhaps not in this state, but in many.

The rational is that it's ultimately the child's decision because either approving or not approving the procedure will each have a consequence, and it's an emotionally charged decision in which parents/guardians and the child involved might well disagree over principle or pragmatics (or both)--in this case, we often insist on the "empowering" term "woman" and stress that she has control over her body, so if she authorizes a procedure, her decision is final (esp. given the consequences). The collective decision, in many states is that the adult should have no say because of this, and even not be notified (a decision I can understand), even though if things go wrong the legal guardians get stuck with the consequences every bit as much as the child.

In this set of laws, the decision is to have some sort of medical intervention or not, and the right is to decide to have the intervention--think of it as deciding on a "commission", not an "omission". It would be nice if the child were to have a well-thought out rationale and shown to the judge that she had seriously considered all the consequences. I'm not convinced this is necessarily the case, but can't say I have any knowledge of common practice.

In this case, the decision was to not undergo some sort of medical procedure, to decide on an "omission" not a "commission". Personally, I think the bar is set lower for deciding on the lack of an act than on deciding on granting permission for an act. In any event, I hope the "man" was required to have shown a depth of conviction and understanding of the consequences to justify the use of the word "man".

Resquiat in pacem.

I think his reasons are weird, but I think it was his decision to make and I'm glad his wishes were honored.

i just don't get it.