Children of Jehovah's Witnesses

[Asmodean]

But I assure you, in the US, if the parents refuse care for their children, especially for religious reasons, the kid will not get care, and the parents cannot be charged with child abuse or neglect.  

What if the kid says that it wants treatment?

[myleviathan]

If the child was coherent enough the hospital's bioethics committee would urge the parents to go with what the son wants. But what happens if the son isn't willing to get it either?? A lot of those kids are so brainwashed to believe if they get a blood transfusion it will cause them to be looked over so they won't be able to go to heaven. They're more concerned about their eternal soul than their 'temporary' body. If the child wasn't coherent enough to express his wishes, they would try to find out how the child would have felt about this situation, and talk to his friends and family to see if they could recall a conversation where he might have expressed his wishes. Here is a pretty well researched piece from religioustolerance.org that has some very interesting information about this topic:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/witness11.htm

[myleviathan]

To my knowledge (and I'm studying this right now), sometimes the Department of Children and Families gets involved, but there's nothing the hospital can do. The hospital giving the transfusion can't give it without parental consent.

[mrwynd]

If the child was coherent enough the hospital's bioethics committee would urge the parents to go with what the son wants. But what happens if the son isn't willing to get it either?? A lot of those kids are so brainwashed to believe if they get a blood transfusion it will cause them to be looked over so they won't be able to go to heaven. They're more concerned about their eternal soul than their 'temporary' body. If the child wasn't coherent enough to express his wishes, they would try to find out how the child would have felt about this situation, and talk to his friends and family to see if they could recall a conversation where he might have expressed his wishes. Here is a pretty well researched piece from religioustolerance.org that has some very interesting information about this topic:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/witness11.htm

Indeed it is much easier for a child to be brainwashed by this sort of thing since they haven't seen a larger world view. Many parents, especially religious ones keep their kids in a tight safety net.

[myleviathan]

Here's a fairly recent case of a brainwashed child:

http://www.ktvb.com/news/regional/stori ... dfb35.html

[LSchune]

Negligent homicide - A person commits the offense of negligent homicide if the person negligently causes the death of another human being.

There's is nothing to convince me that a parent who lets their child die because of a ****ing religious hoo-doo is NOT guilty of this crime.

[afreethinker30]

I'm sure it depends on the location of the hospital and the doctors involved also.I would think a larger more well known hospital would take more action to be able to treat the child.

[myleviathan]

That's the problem. They can't. The only hope for a child in this situation is the state to over-rule parental consent - which does happen. All hospitals have their hands tied with the threat of law-suits. If the state over-rules the consent then they'll do it. But only in that case as far as I know.