I won’t even bother trying to express my shock of the mere possibility of sextuplets. That is something weird. But apart from that. In case you didn’t know there was a women who gave birth sextuplets (six babies) in BC recently. Yeah, this has been the hot issue of the city for some time, and the other day, this story was put on the first page of all the major newspapers!

6 babies. Simple physics should dictate that it’s a difficult one. To cram 6 babies into one womb, that’s not a lot of space for one, which means the children are small. Secondly.. Well. Never mind, it’s just not normal, which often translates to dangerous!

Now, 2 of them are already dead. 4 remain. They need blood transfusion to survive. Here’s the catch - their parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religious (or some call it a cult) body that bans blood transfusion and refers to it as being “violated”.

Assuming that the doctors are correct in saying that the blood transfusion is necessary for survival, it basically boils down to this dilemma :

“Survival, or regligious righteousness?”

Here’s my scoop on it :

“Get your head out of your ass.”

And here is why I think so.

I am a very spiritual and somewhat religious person, but not leaning towards silly beliefs such as specific doctrines or discipline in life, and I am not saying this from an athiest’s point of view. Here are the arguments from the religious side of things :

• “Leave it up to the hands of God.” - If there was a God, it’s not some super-human being that concerns about the life of each individual. If that were the case there wouldn’t be starving children in Africa. Stop trying to make it sound like God is some sort of superman looking after each individual. God, or the force of the universe, is an overlying structure of quantum physics and other sciences that make things possible. That spiritual force is in all of us, and embedded to the form of this world. You’re supposed to do your absolute best to achieve the best you can in life. That is the power of God. Possibilities and free will. Blood transfusion technology among with millions of other scientific innovations is our way of making it possible - a power given to all humans. Use it. That is the God within us. God is not some dude sitting in a chair going “he dies… he dies… she can live for another 5 years… she has 40 years to go… everbody in this town dies.”
• “It’s a personal religious choice.” - It’s your choice, not that of your children. Now, the children are not capable of making their own decisions, so it has to be made for them by others. They did not make the conscious choice to become Jehovah’s Witnesses. So the choice should be made by what is commonly perceived as the right and normal thing to do - you survive using the technologies we have available. The parents are part of a religious cult with obscene beliefs. Their choice should not be the measure - the choice of the public, and the authority derived from that same public should be. The children have a right to it. If the doctors and government officials think they need transfusion and the parents refuse, take custody of them then. Of course, because of the overkill of a possible religious/civil backslash and criticism pressured the gov’t to give up custody. But that’s not right.
• “It’s a free country.” - Damn right it is, and the children’s right to the freedom of survival is more important than the personal beliefs of the parents with their preachings.

There it is.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 2:12 pm and is filed under General, Hot Issues, Stupid People, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.