About some religious beliefs?

[MissionItsPossible]

Yes this is a hot topic. I'm watching One Born Every Minute and there is a Jehovah's Witness couple on there and the wife is about to have a baby. But they are worried about if she loses too much blood and dies. AIBU to wonder how how can a religious belief that is not proved by any form of God can trump potentially losing the love of your life by a medical operation that could save them? I'm not religious so maybe don't understand but I can't understand how in any religion, against whatever beliefs, you could deny someone you made, or someone you gave birth to, or someone you just love in general against a medical and important operation, refuse operations over the genders/ethnicity of the doctors/nurses operating. As said I am not religious so maybe just don't understand but if I was involved in a religion that didn't believe in blood transfusions and it aspired that it was the only thing that was a chance to save my child, like HOW could I even contemplate dismissing that over faith?

Writerwannabe83 "It obviously went to Court, the parents wishes were overrided and the baby ultimately got her transplant."

Common sense and human rights prevailed.

"I could see relief in the parents eyes when that decision was made though, I think they were glad the choice had been taken out of their hands and that their baby would be saved but not as a result of them going against their own beliefs."

This is a very good point, the parents, I am sure, do not want to stick to this ridiculous belief, based on a Bible verse taken totally out of context, when many other parts of the Bible are ignored! Parents do not and should not have the right of life or death over kids, ever.

Parents aren't usually allowed to refuse emergency life saving blood transfusions for their children. The boy would have to have been competent to majd his own decision regarding blood.

Little hazy, but it was over 25 years ago, and it was told to me via my young school friend. It didn't sound like an emergency situation, it sounded like the doctors were talking through options about an operation and possibility of blood tranfusion which they refused to consent to.

I really don't have specifics unfortunately , but I do remember friend in tears over her parents beliefs before her brothers life.

Can't personally understand any belief coming before my kids

Pegasus another rule that's not true is the school play one. I've never known a JW child to be excluded from a school play unless it was overtly religious or Christmassy.

There are most definitely windows in many Kingdom Halls 😁. A lot of the more recent ones don't have them as they're pre-fab buildings and it's easier and cheaper to not have windows.
The 144,000 applies to those going to heaven. The rest of them hope to live forever on earth, which they believe God will restore to a paradise.
They don't take blood as they are told to believe only God can give life and blood equals life. That's also why they don't consume it either; their bible says to abstain from blood, for the above reason completely out of context, natch.
Kids can be in non-religious plays.
There are more but I have to get back to work.

Sad to say I lost a JW friend to placental abruption and associated blood loss. Whole family DH and DP are practicing JW. As soon as friend was admitted, a JW advocate dashed to the hospital and stayed there to make sure that no intervention was given and DH didn't allow a transfusion. I'm not JW. Didn't understand it then, don't understand it now. Poor child left without a mother for some stupid bloody religious belief that intervention is wrong and in passing DF will be preserved in jehovybollocks memory to await the arrival of paradise

Doctors need to be allowed to use a bit of leeway. If someone can be saved with a simple procedure and go on to live a perfectly normal life but refuses on grounds of religious brainwashing then I think doctors should be allowed to deny them the right to suicide (which is what it is) in the name of god on grounds that

1. they're brainwashed therefore not in their right mind. Those are the beliefs they have now, they may not have them in a months or a years time.

2. the baby's right to a living mother outweighs the right of the mother to choose needless death.

3. the doctors should have the right to not let someone who can be easily saved and returned to a healthy, normal life die needlessly. They would be facilitating the mothers death by doing so and they shouldn't have to do that.

What you call "religious brainwashing" hilda, they would call a sincere religious belief. I'm not a Jehovah's Witness but people should have the right to make bad decisions about their own medical care.

Babies do not have a right to a living parent. Doctors always respect the will of patients who are competent to make a decision. It isn't usually a case of transfusion or for anyway, there are blood substitutes that can be used.

It is brainwashing to prefer death of yourself or your child to a simple medical procedure. People like that are not mentally competent to make important life or death decisions.

Children should have the right to their parents not being killed needlessly and no doctor should have to facilitate avoidable death.

Not to mention the pressure from church elders.

No doctor should have to facilitate avoidable death.

The alternative is for doctors to declare religious people mentally incompetent and force them to have treatment against their will. I'd bet that most doctors would be deeply uncomfortable with that.

Doctors have a duty to make sure the person has and has understood all the facts but it's ultimately up to the patient.

Stoptherideiwannagetoff - that's so sad

This is what happens when people stop using their common sense,

This is what happens when people stop using their common sense,

This.

If someone is empty headed enough to refuse life saving treatment that's their call, but they shouldn't get to fuck around with their baby's and children's lives.

HildaOg: "If someone can be saved with a simple procedure and go on to live a perfectly normal life but refuses on grounds of religious brainwashing then I think doctors should be allowed to deny them the right to suicide"

That's an interesting point. If someone tried to kill themselves by taking an overdose, the doctors would try to save their lives, overriding their wishes. If they can override a person's wishes in that case, why can't they override them in the case of a blood transfusion? Is it to do with the fact that in the former case the person will usually be unconscious and therefore incapable of stating their wishes? Whereas in the second, the person will have stated beforehand and maybe even signed something to say they don't want to be saved by a transfusion?

hack; doctors will still provide life saving treatment to conscious overdosers against their will because they're not seen as mentally competent.

montreal.ctvnews.ca/family-friends-of-jehovah-s-witness-want-strict-rules-on-refusing-blood-transfusions-1.3188378

and it happens too!

OP, do you realise that people die for their faith and amidst horrible pains, too, even today? Think of the Christian martyrs of ISIS/Boko Haram etc.

The point is that you have only one egg and so you can only put it into one basket. And if one basket lasts for about 80 years max, the other eternally, then there is only one reasonable place to put your egg.

I am not religious and find it baffling.

I also - I discussed this on another thread find the varying of the "tolerance level" for different beliefs baffling.

The one you have mentioned seems unacceptable to many people. As often is something like creationalism.

Yet the same people would advocate respect and tolerance for religious beliefs...usually the benign ones.

Whereas I find all religious beliefs equally baffling and frankly ridiculous.

These 'advocates' should be barred from seeing vulnerable patients and their families. Adding to the tragedy, they're not necessarily inherently nasty people - they may genuinely believe they're doing God's will.

To quote 'With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion'.

IonaNE

OP, do you realise that people die for their faith and amidst horrible pains, too, even today? Think of the Christian martyrs of ISIS/Boko Haram etc. The point is that you have only one egg and so you can only put it into one basket. And if one basket lasts for about 80 years max, the other eternally, then there is only one reasonable place to put your egg.

Yes I understand that, though they are terrorists intending to cause harm, not every day law abiding people like Jehovah's Witnesses I don't understand the the correlation between ISIS, baskets and eggs.

Because faith comes before basic morality, that's why religion causes so many problems in the world.

Interesting post OP!

I sort of get it. I think the way to understand it is to look at the blood transfusion thing not as a 'rule' in itself as such, but as an extension of a rule against interfering in God's will.

To be brutal, I think it's a way of absolving yourself of responsibility for making difficult decisions. God knows best - he will decide.

I can see why it's attractive, actually. A couple of years ago I had an abortion but it was a difficult and painful decision for me and my DH. Had we been very religious, there'd have been no need for that painful decision. God had already made the decision for me - he got me pregnant.

Other ways in which you see it demonstrated are religious climate-change sceptics (not naming any names, DUP, cough). They essentially deny climate change on the basis that God gave us the planet so we can do what we like with it. Again, there's no need to think hard about the issue or challenge yourself on any of your lifestyle choices. It's fine to drive everywhere and not recycle - God meant for this to happen to the planet, he made us, and even if he didn't mean for this to happen, he'll sort it.

I'm not at all a fan of the JW cult, but if a JW sincerely believes in a life after death, they would not want to jeopardise your loved-one's eternal life just to have them with you for a few more years.

As the non-religious (perhaps Atheist) daughter of a JW, I struggle with this concept and most of their archaic beliefs.

I don't understand the the correlation between ISIS, baskets and eggs.

I think you misunderstood Iona's post - I read it as referring to the victims of ISIS, some of whom were targetted for not being muslim or the right type of muslim. However, it should be noted that people of no faith are also victims of the religious extremists. People who dare to be atheists in some countries are at high risk - and they know there is just this one 'basket'.