…and this is a 
Religion kills
Category: Religion
Posted on: November 30, 2007 8:34 AM, by PZ Myers
So this young man, Dennis Lindberg, refused a blood transfusion and died. This was a completely useless, futile death; it wasn't a sacrifice that helped someone, and it was avoidable by a routine medical procedure. So what could possibly have driven him to this behavior?
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."
So he wasn't coerced; he was mature and capable of rational thought; he wasn't suicidal; this wasn't an expensive treatment his family couldn't afford; he did not make the world a better place by dying. He simply calmly decided on the basis of certain premises that were planted in his brain at an early age by an aunt who was a Jehovah's Witness that he had to do something both lethal and stupid. His head was filled with garbage, and this is the end result.
Religion is child abuse. It strips kids of the critical reasoning abilities that can save their lives. His crazy aunt killed him as surely as if she had beat him to death with a baseball bat.
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Comments
The judge is an accessory to murder. An 8th friggin grader! You don't let kids do stupid things. They are KIDS. They can be stupid when they grow up, but first they have to live to adulthood.
Posted by: PalMD | November 30, 2007 8:44 AM
So basically the judge has ruled that euthanasia is legal in the US?
How is this pro-life?
the Judge is culpable and should be tried himself.... so are anorexics allowed to die also.... I bet there is a lot of legal precedence on this...
The parent have just killed their own child, it is child abuse.
Posted by: deviljelly | November 30, 2007 8:48 AM
Children are allowed to die because religious motives but grown ups cannot get euthanasia if they wish so and whoever helps them goes to jail.
The US is a really strange country.
Posted by: Guido | November 30, 2007 8:49 AM
Bollocks. Complete, unmitigated bollocks. Had the kid said that he was refusing the transfusion because he believed he would survive without it, the judge would presumably not have considered this 'understand[ing] the consequences of his decision.'
That is precisely what happened. This child firmly believed that he would survive without the transfusion; just not in this world, but in a magical place where dying in a really stupid, pointless way is apparently considered a fucking virtue. Worse, he believed that he would suffer unimaginable torment for accepting the transfusion; this, apparently, is not 'coercion.' He was probably also aware of how JWs treat those who accept transfusions; the threat of communal shunning is apparently not coercive.
What a senseless waste.
Posted by: MartinM | November 30, 2007 8:49 AM
Here in the UK this would not have happened, all kids in this situation get made wards of court for the duration of their treatment and it is perfectly routine. Doctors who do not do this would likely be up before the General Medical Council faster than they could think.
The matter is very simple, unless and until he is reaches the legal age of consent a responsible adult with his best interests at heart will take these decisions for him. In the absence of a responsible adult, and JW's do not qualify on this point, the court will act for him. Once he reaches the legal age of consent he can commit medical suicide if he wants but not before. End of discussion.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | November 30, 2007 8:50 AM
"They can be stupid when they grow up, but first they have to live to adulthood."
At least by not making it to adulthood, he's not able to take anyone with him. OK - that was a little low. Clearly he is brainwashed, though.
Maybe the good that comes of this is that it showcases religious fanatacism in its ugliest form, and probably makes people queasy.
Posted by: Shap | November 30, 2007 8:50 AM
It's sad that Lindberg chose to die and for reasons that meant much to him but don't make sense to reasonable people. But:
You are over generalizing.
Posted by: peak_bagger | November 30, 2007 8:51 AM
I'm struggling with the child abuse idea. It seems that you're saying the boy is without blame because he was indoctrinated by his aunt. But surely the aunt is then without blame because she was presumably indoctrinated by someone else. Of course you'll argue that being an adult she should know better, but where does this idea come from? There's a huge amount of evidence that the majority of adults don't know better and just follow along with their parents' beliefs throughout their lives. Religion as a virus makes much more sense than religion as child abuse.
Posted by: Rory | November 30, 2007 8:52 AM
When child abuse is mentioned, people generally think of acts committed with malicious intent. That's not universally accurate. Every now and then there's a case of, say, an exorcism gone wrong in which a child died. In such cases everyone involved firmly believed that what they were doing was right, but it's child abuse nonetheless. This case is not so very different from those.
Posted by: MartinM | November 30, 2007 8:56 AM
You know, you're right about how evil religion can be, and I'm going to agree that the young man may have come to his decision from the wrong direction -- but the article says that with additional chemotherapy and transfusions his life might have been prolonged by five years. I find it equally plausible that the religion gave him an excuse to give up. Granted, the information provided in the article is thin, I do find it hard to believe the doctors would be saying the kid would barely make it to voting age anyway, but to me it looks more like effect of transfusing would have been to prolong dying, not save his life.
Which brings up another question -- if you're a theist, you can always invoke a Higher Power as an excuse to reject treatments you don't want or don't think are going to help. How easy (or hard) is it for an atheist to reject treatment when you have to rely on telling the medicos 'I've read the literature, I understand statistics, and I'd rather just die now than go through x number of months or years feeling like shit'?
Posted by: Nan | November 30, 2007 8:57 AM
"Religion is child abuse."
Yep. It never ceases to amaze me how upset people get when I say it. They think that stating the truth is more offensive then the results of filling children's minds with such deadly foolishness. Hence suicide bombers, abortion doctor assassins, child beaters and wingnut war mongers.
Posted by: mayhempix | November 30, 2007 8:58 AM
She always took my milk..
When I went to school as a kid, there was this JW girl that I was friends with. We never discussed religion or anything like that. We were sorta just lunch table friends. We were the land of misfits really. Not jocks, not nerds, not anythng really. I was friends with her, and she with me for no other reason that we were friends. One day she simply seemed to disappear. I had no idea where she had gone.
A day or so later her father came to the school to pick up her things. It seems she had fallen in love with another member of her Kingdom Hall, and they were denied the rights to a relationship. The two had, in secret, decided to run away to Florida and get married by themselves. She had never told me anything about any of this.
On the way to Florida, in the middle of the night, her boyfriend fell asleep at the wheel and had crashed the car. She bled to death internally, and, as a JW she was not given treatment, or so I heard. The teachers knew about this, and tried to tell us she would have died any ways, as "The damage was done," but I knew the teachers had thought differently, and were trying to just cover-up the facts, as I pretty much over heard them saying so...
It was weird looking at my milk over the next month or so.
I hated milk..
Posted by: Lago | November 30, 2007 8:59 AM
Ill be the heartless bastard. If only all the religious people were as dedicated the problems with religion would last ~ 1 more generation. And yes convincing a child to take a course of action in the name of god which directly kills them is no different than coercing someone to jump off a building to get some sick jollies.
Religious zealots indoctrinate children to strap bombs to their chests and blow up other people. I expect the judge (and aunt) would find this morally wrong and dare I say evil. However, indoctrinating children to kill themselves, well that's morally ambiguous.
Question: Does Washington try 14 year olds as adults, in particular give death penalty sentences? If not this judge is endorsing state sanctioned hypocrisy
Posted by: Lorax | November 30, 2007 8:59 AM
As Dawkins said, "the implications of religion are staggering..." and this is just one small example. As the owner of a health care communications company my biggest obsticle informing people about health care is religion. Some people want to "pray" their way to better health...crazy or what? It's totally inappropriate...leading kids there is child abuse, no question. That's why confronting West tonight at the U of M is so important...hopefully, we'll see all you Minnesota freethinkers at the Campus Club at 5:30pm today...free beer!
Posted by: Rick Schauer | November 30, 2007 9:03 AM
I've read your blog many times, and used to think you were a little too extreme in your contempt for religion, but a story like this forces me to re-consider my position. You are absolutely right; his aunt murdered him. On the other hand, she must be the victim of someone else. She was probably indoctrinated at a young age as well. It's an endless cycle of ignorance.
Posted by: Kevin | November 30, 2007 9:07 AM
This is still a ridiculous generalization. Find a news story about a kid in Chicago who's arrested for gang activity. Are you then going to argue that black culture is child abuse?
Religion is not child abuse. Religion can be child abuse, and at times it certainly is. But you can reference a million stories about religion screwing up somebody's life and still have only considered a tiny portion of the world's religious population.
As a scientist, you can do better than this, PZ Myers. I'm sure you know very well that examples are not evidence. Give us a real logical argument that religion is detrimental to children, and I will consider it. Until then, this really comes off as just hate speech.
Posted by: Brandon | November 30, 2007 9:09 AM
No. It says 70% chance of surviving 5 years. Turn that around, it's a 30% chance of dying within 5 years. It says nothing whatsoever about survival beyond that point. 5-year survival rates are standard metrics for evaluating cancer treatments, I believe.
Posted by: MartinM | November 30, 2007 9:09 AM
Children are allowed to die because religious motives but grown ups cannot get euthanasia if they wish so and whoever helps them goes to jail.
The US is a really strange country.
This.
Posted by: jfatz | November 30, 2007 9:09 AM
Actually, he was probably just as well placed to make the decision as someone aged 16, 18, or 20, or whatever, who had the same beliefs.
Furthermore, you can't impose medical treatment on people against their will. The law quite properly gives people the right to decline medical treatment without inquiring as to whether their reasons are somehow "correct". About the only exception is if you're in the military - in which case the state's interest in keeping you fit for active duty prevails over your own wishes.
The point here shouldn't be to complain about the law. I have no problem with patient autonomy for a 14-y.o. who has been examined by a court and been held to be sufficiently mature to make his own decision about whether to decline medical treatment. The point should simply be the destructiveness of such religious beliefs. PZ has the emphasis right here.
Posted by: Russell Blackford | November 30, 2007 9:13 AM
It was bad enough to hear recent stories about adults surrendering their lives when they could so easily have been saved, but to hear a kid saying that... and a court saying it's perfectly ok for that to happen... it's criminal. And I hope that aunt can't sleep at night.
Posted by: MS | November 30, 2007 9:13 AM
If you read my blog, you know that I rant about this sort of thing all the time, both in the context of teens being taken in by alternative medicine and eschewing effective therapy (Abraham Cherrix and Katie Wernecke, for example) and religion (Christian Scientists, for example), sadly it's not quite that simple for at least one reason. Consider the problem of treating a 14-year-old who will not cooperate with your treatments. Religion is one of the most powerful motivators known to man; he would be quite likely resist physically. Should the judge call in some brawny guards to strap him down and force him to take the transfusion? If his platelet count is low (which frequently happens in patients with leukemia), physical force against him to force him to comply could risk doing grave harm. Another aspect of this is that physicians and nurses are very uncomfortable forcibly treating anyone above a certain age, with the exception of young children who clearly can't be expected to understand the issues and make an informed choice. Of course, physicians and nurses are even more uncomfortable with (seriously disturbed by) watching a youth die unnecessarily when they can save his life with a simple medical intervention.
In this particular case, I suppose one could say that Dennis was probably so sick that he couldn't resist or argue that it would be easy to wait until he was so weak that he couldn't resist, but it's still a tough call.
So, yes, I'm sympathetic to the view that the guardians should have been overruled, but I think some commenters here don't appreciate that implementing a decision is not as easy as just ordering the treatment. Even so, I come very close to saying that, yes, Dennis should have been forced to take a transfusion and his guardians barred from his room while it was being done. But I have no illusions about just how nasty a scene that could have been. In the end, it's the religious indoctrination that I blame, and the judge not as much.
Posted by: Orac | November 30, 2007 9:15 AM
OK. There is no objective metric by which one can evaluate the truth of religious beliefs on which the 'non-harmful' beliefs pass, but the 'harmful' ones fail. This disconnect between observable reality and religious belief entangles all such unsupported beliefs, such that promotion of the acceptance of one automatically enables acceptance of the others.
Put simply, we can distinguish between 'harmful' and 'non-harmful' religious beliefs based upon content. We cannot distinguish between them based upon epistemology.
Posted by: MartinM | November 30, 2007 9:15 AM
#16, Brandon,
Read "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris. It does a great job of explaining our position. Also see: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
...it doesn't take a scientist to debunk religion...just critical reading skills. Good Luck!
Posted by: Rick Schauer | November 30, 2007 9:18 AM
Posted by: RascoHeldall | November 30, 2007 9:20 AM
I'm totally jumping on the anecdotal bandwagon.
In middle school I played violin, and in our very small orchestra group there was a girl named Rebecca, who was epileptic. She was also incredibly sweet and kind, but had a sort of mischeivous streak that probably bedeviled her with its implications of being 'less than pure.' Her parents (and their dozen or so children) were Christian Scientists, and the girls all wore skirts and plain clothes and such. Rebecca played bass, and the violin. She seemed to have many odd constraints on her life; she wasn't allowed to date or go to parties if there were boys there, she couldn't wear a bathing suit or shorts, and she didn't talk to boys in school AT ALL. I sometimes wonder why she wasn't homeschooled. A mutual friend of ours, a strings teacher, told me that Rebecca's parents convinced her they'd bought her a Stradivarius. Which of course was a lie, but she'd been taught to trust and honor them so implicitly that she never thought to question it.
The summer before she started high school, Rebecca had a friend over for a sleepover. Because she was not medicated for her epilepsy, the seizure she suffered in the night - through a series of complications and her parents refusing medical care- killed her.
I went to the funeral, and my mother had to forcibly remove me from the service when I saw her parents, who were smiling and singing with joy because Rebecca was with Jesus now. I screamed that they were crazy and had killed her, because I was 13 and the idea of someone's parents just letting them die for religion was like a nightmare come to life.
I'm not trying to prove a point with this comment, the post just reminded me of a time when someone put more import into the approval of an invisible being than their child's health.
Posted by: Jenbug | November 30, 2007 9:21 AM
I appreciate Orac's comments; the rights of people to refuse treatment are fraught with contingencies and situational ethics in all cases. However, I think the point to be made is well in advance of the situation. This particular religion has a a major tenet that people must eschew a common, proven medical treatment, no matter what the circumstances, or else their god won't love them any more. THAT is abuse, for both children and adults.
Posted by: Carlie | November 30, 2007 9:27 AM
Did you just say that gangs are intrinsic to black culture? Because there are white gangs and Hispanic gangs and Asian gangs and all sorts of other gangs, you know. And I'd think that most people would agree that adults who indoctrinate children into gangs have committed child abuse.
Posted by: Robbin | November 30, 2007 9:34 AM
From the article:
"However, his birth parents... believed their son should have had the transfusion and suggested he had been unduly influenced by his aunt"
What an utterly horrible thing to have to go through.
Posted by: Olaf Davis | November 30, 2007 9:35 AM
I probably wouldn't let an 8th grader operate a chainsaw. I doubt I'd agree that a child of 14 was qualified to make THIS decision.
Also, regarding his 70 percent chance of surviving 5 years, that figure will take on a whole different significance for everyone involved if they find a cure for leukemia in 4 years.
...
None of the stories I could find said why the kid was in the custody of his aunt, and why the parents did not have the right to overrule this thing.
And I wonder what religion the judge in this story is?
Posted by: Hank Fox | November 30, 2007 9:38 AM
What?...no crowds of pro-lifers?...no accusations of judicial activism?...no emergency session of congress?...no presidential intervention?...WTF?!
Posted by: chriss | November 30, 2007 9:39 AM
Misinterpreting the Old Testament prohibition against eating animal blood as a routine food item, in 1945, the WatchTower Society began teaching that receiving a blood transfusion was "eating human blood". Jehovah's Witnesses believe that receiving an infusion of human blood into their body's circulatory system is scientifically the exact same thing as eating or ingesting blood into their body's digestive system:
"A patient in the hospital maybe fed through the mouth, through the nose, or through the veins. When sugar solutions are given intravenously it is called intravenous feeding. So the hospital's own terminology recognizes as feeding the process of putting nutrition into one's system via the veins. Hence the attendant administering the transfusion is feeding the patient through the veins, and the patient receiving it is eating through his veins." -- The WATCHTOWER magazine, July 1, 1951.
Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that when human blood is transfused into their body's circulatory system that the transfused human blood remains to be human blood and continues to function as human blood. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that if blood is eaten, then the ingested blood enters the body's digestive system, where the blood would be treated by the body exactly the same as it would treat a hotdog, a potato chip, or any other food item. Ingested blood would be completely digested and broken down into proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and waste; which are then either assimilated or excreted by the body.
The WatchTower Society uses scriptures which speak about the blood of slaughtered animals to teach Jehovah's Witnesses that blood is "sacred" because blood is the "symbol of life". Then, the WatchTower Society turns around and requires Jehovah's Witnesses to sacrifice their own "life" to maintain the alleged "sacredness" of a "symbol" of the very thing they are sacrificing -- their life. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that the WatchTower doctrine on blood moronically places a higher value on the SYMBOL than it does on the THING SYMBOLIZED
In fact, the Old Testament scriptures permitted the eating of unbled animal meat, which the Bible treats exactly the same as eating animal blood itself. In isolated occasions, when humans needed to eat unbled meat in order to sustain their own human life, the Mosaic Law permitted such, but then required the eaters to fulfill the requirements of being "unclean" for a few days. Thus, the Bible recognized that the sustaining of human life was more "sacred" than maintaining the sacredness of animal blood. To do otherwise would be doing exactly what the moronic WatchTower Society does. It would make the SYMBOL more SACRED than the THING SYMBOLIZED.
In fact, the WatchTower Society is leading Jehovah's Witnesses to disobey GOD and violate the Holy Scriptures in one of the most serious ways possible. Because humans were created in GOD's image, GOD considers human life sacred. A Jehovah's Witness who sacrifices their SACRED LIFE in order to maintain the sacredness of a SYMBOL of that SACRED LIFE varies little from those who profane life by committing suicide. Those Jehovah's Witness Elders who teach and police this moronic doctrine vary little from common accessories to murder. The Bible is fairly clear in how GOD views murder, and how He deals with Murderers.
This moronic twisting of scripture would be laughable if not for the fact that it has lead to the pointless deaths of numerous Jehovah's Witnesses in the past, and it will continue to lead to the pointless deaths of many more Jehovah's Witnesses in the future.
The following website summarizes over 315 U.S. court cases and lawsuits affecting children of Jehovah's Witness Parents, including 200+ cases where the JW Parents refused to consent to life-saving blood transfusions for their dying children:
DIVORCE, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
http://jwdivorces.bravehost.com
Posted by: Jerry Jones | November 30, 2007 9:43 AM
Re: #10: Leukemia actually has a very good long-term survival rate. It's one of the few cancers that isn't necessarily a death sentence, you can recover and go on to have a long and healthy life. This was neither a long shot nor prolonging the inevitable that he decided against.
Re: #16: Not like a scientist? To generalize from examples? It's called empiricism, and induction. It doesn't matter if less than 1% of religious people blow themselves up or let their children die, if it's a consistent and steady occurrence in that
Whether it be denying evolution and devaluing math and science, voting in untrustworthy people on the basis of religion, wasting potential legit charity money on slick televangelists, these are all examples of how religion makes the world a worse place, because each generation of stupids indoctrinates the critical thinking out of their own children, continuing the downward spiral.
Posted by: Waterdog | November 30, 2007 9:47 AM
Give us a real logical argument that religion is detrimental to children, and I will consider it.
How about you read the post.
Until then, this really comes off as just hate speech.
Ah yes, the old "criticism = hate" bullshit. Go pound sand.
Posted by: Graculus | November 30, 2007 9:49 AM
The judge and the family should be held accountable for his death. A 13/14 yr old child is not capable of making this decision. My son is 13 years old, and extremely bright. There is no way I would allow him to make a decision like this. Even the brightest of children lacks the mental maturity to make an informed decision of this magnitude.
If the same child had refused to eat, would the judge have order IV or GI feeding? I think the answer is yes.
Only in the realm of religion is child abuse condoned. Only in the realm of religion is murder overlooked. Only in the realm of religion is ignorance celebrated.
I wish there were a hell so these people could rot in it.
OEJ
Posted by: One Eyed Jack | November 30, 2007 9:53 AM
At the hospital where I work we have a procedure in place just for JW's. We have a stack of court orders waiting. When the patient loses consciousness a doctor fills out a form declaring them no longer capable of making their own decisions, someone fills in the name and date on the court order and takes it to the judge (who is not like THAT judge), wakes him up if necessary, he signs, we give the transfusion. If parents are refusing treatment for a minor, we call the police and they are arrested for criminal neglect of a minor. If the patient lives, we drop the charges.
Sometimes, of course, this all takes too long and we lose them. But we try. Our most recent case involved a mother 22 years old who had just given birth to twins. She had bled so much she was in real danger of dying, and she knew it.
We saved her. I don't know if she is glad, but we are.
Posted by: Leslie C | November 30, 2007 9:54 AM
All I have to say is what the fuck?
Posted by: danley | November 30, 2007 9:59 AM
I'm looking forward to the next time Jehovah's Witnesses knock on my front door. I'm going to give them a piece of my mind.
Posted by: CalGeorge | November 30, 2007 10:04 AM
The local TV news had more details--the parents had been addicts, and had legally surrendered custody to the aunt while they got their lives together, which--at least from superficial appearances during this TV story--they had seemed to do successfully. They wanted the transfusions, but stopped their legal fight when the boy went into his final coma the day before he died.
Posted by: thalarctos | November 30, 2007 10:07 AM
Wow. So, they needed help taking care of their child, they did the completely responsible thing by admitting they needed help and going to their trusted family members to get it, and their family killed their son. Truly, religion brings family together.
Posted by: Carlie | November 30, 2007 10:11 AM
CalGeorge, splash a little blood on them and watch the Catholics sip it off. Thp thp thp thp, yummm.
Posted by: Caucasian Jesus | November 30, 2007 10:12 AM
#16 Brandon writes:
"Find a news story about a kid in Chicago who's arrested for gang activity. Are you then going to argue that black culture is child abuse?"
This says far more about you, Brandon, than it does the issue at hand.
1) The analogy is false. No culture, white, black, Latino, or Venusian, is equivalent to a parent indoctrinating a child into a religion. A parent exercises a much higher level of influence.
2) No ethnic culture inherently forms gangs. Prevalence of gangs are tied to poverty if anything. Actually, there was this one gang, comprised mostly of middle class white males. They called it the Ku Klux Klan.
OEJ
Posted by: One Eyed Jack | November 30, 2007 10:13 AM
Well, now! Isn't that an interesting point!
I suppose the difference is that Terry Schiavo, being brain-dead and all, wasn't able to sit up and speak into the microphones to express her wishes.
Of course, to fully accept that argument, one must ignore the fact that her husband Michael a murderous liar for expressing her wishes for her - of, as Frist et al. did, make Michael out to be a liar who only sought the death of his inconveniently comatose wife.
Minors can make decisions for themselves. I believe that here in Massachusetts, once a child of separated parents reaches the age of 12, he can have some say in his own custody arrangements. That's hardly a life-or-death decision, though.
Imagine:
Boy: I have blasphemed. I have denied the Holy Spirit and posted my denial on YouTube. I am going to Hell and cannot live with myself. Therefore I am going to jump off the roof of the courthouse and die.
Judge: Are you sure?
Boy: Yes.
Judge: Ok then.
Posted by: Kseniya | November 30, 2007 10:15 AM
Girl: I'm really sad, my life sucks, I've been socially destroyed by all the horrible things this boy I met online is saying about me. Everyone hates me. I'll never feel good again. I'm going to hang myself in the closet.
Judge: Absolutely not. I'm going to sign this Committment Order, and have you transfered to...
Girl: Suicide is consonant with my relgious beliefs.
Judge: Oh! Well! Alright then. Off you go.
Posted by: Kseniya | November 30, 2007 10:21 AM
I was just taken to task by a troll on my site for noting that a child becoming religious can be a parent's worse nightmare. Dammit.
Posted by: Greg Laden | November 30, 2007 10:23 AM
Holy crap! I swear I didn't type this:
Ok, I did, but as you can see I'm my own worst editor. It should have read:
"Of course, to fully accept that argument, one must ignore the fact that her husband Michael expressed her wishes for her - or, as Frist [...]"
Posted by: Kseniya | November 30, 2007 10:24 AM
Too bad for the kid, but this is a good ruling if you ask me. The state has no business making patients decisions for them. So what if he's "only" 14. He's old enough to understand the consequences. Regardless of if he believes there's life somewhere after that, he understood that it would be the end of the line for him here. He's pretty stupid, if you ask me, for thinking a blood transfusion would make him "unlovable in the eyes of god," but people are free to be morons. I'd really call religion a disease, rather than a form of child abuse. It just gets passed down to children because anybody past their very early years would react to religious stories by saying, "please, I'm not stupid enough to believe THAT."
Posted by: Ollie | November 30, 2007 10:27 AM
I have cousins born back in the 1950s when blood transfusions were used to treat newborns suffering from Rh factor conflicts with their mothers. Without the transfusions they would probably have died. Once a Jehovah's Witness came to my parents' home and had the misfortune to meet me. I told him, "My cousins are alive because of blood transfusions. If my aunt and uncle were Jehovah's Witnesses, my cousins would be dead. I think your religion is ridiculous." The Witness decided he'd rather talk about evolution instead, but that didn't go too well either.
Posted by: Zeno | November 30, 2007 10:27 AM
Religion is child abuse. Yup. Or at least "neglect," since the term "abuse" has connotations that indicate willful wrongdoing. No matter what, that aunt deserves to be burned at the stake. I'll hold judgement on the judge - it could be he was protecting civil liberties and isn't exactly a fundie. I don't have enough information. But if he's a fundie who thinks the kid was "righteous" to do this and Jeebus will protect him, then he should exit the judicial system most rickytick.
And, yeah, I'll say it - at least the kid died before he could perpetuate the stupidity It used to be that the "stupid" got sick and died or got eaten or whatever. But people are generally too safe today, so "stupid" is no longer a reason to take one out of the breeding population.
Along these lines, religion may have been a type of "communal stupid" that had some advantages. It built communities that would otherwise might not have survived without a way to "coerce" community involvement. "God wills it" was a useful way to get community planners to get the well dug. Today, the advantages of a shared belief in invisible men are far outweighed by the damages caused by the rejection of rational thought it requires. It's just that the believers won't die fast enough!
Posted by: Charles Soto | November 30, 2007 10:29 AM
I would guess if you took a microscope to the rest of the religious lives you would find a net zero gain in real world value if not a negative.
Just this week alone the concept of hell has caused family disruption here, a child dead above, a bunch of things from 1 day yesterday, the systematic devaluing and attacking of science, the preventing of condoms being used in Africa, the pushing of superstition into the Presidential race in the USA, suicide bombers, ridiculously silly apologists, school boards wasting public funds,and it goes on and on. This is only the 'big' ideas and not the million of paper cuts it causes daily.
Why anyone wants to defend this stuff past admitting, 'Well I was raised that way' is beyond my understanding.
To equate what happened to this child due to the thoughts being pumped into his head by an adult to gang formation is simply moronic. That may be the worst analogy ever presented on this website.
Posted by: Uber | November 30, 2007 10:29 AM
I will not let my son be infected by the disease that is religion.
It ruins the mind. What that woman did is child abuse.
And the judge is an coward.
Posted by: Stevie_C | November 30, 2007 10:36 AM
Not being one of JW's makes it very easy for most of you to pass judgement. The boy did NOT believe in a place of eternal torment, the Bible shows there is no such place. However he did believe in everlasting life on earth when he will be resurrected. True Christian have often died for their beliefs, some even for merely not announcing their allegiance to some nation. No matter what I say most of you will never understand what we go threw in situations like these. It takes much more strength and faith to do what this boy did then to just give in to someone else's beliefs. There is no comparisons to a few short years on earth in sickness to everlasting life on earth without sickness, sorrow and death.
Before so quickly passing judgement it might be wise to look into why he chose this course. You may not agree with it for yourself but at least there will be much less misinformation being spread about our beliefs.
http://www.watchtower.org/e/hb/index.htm?article=article_05.htm
http://www.watchtower.org/e/hb/index.htm?article=article_07.htm
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20000108/article_01.htm
http://www.watchtower.org/e/200608/article_03.htm
Posted by: Lantz | November 30, 2007 10:37 AM
Evolution in action.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | November 30, 2007 10:46 AM
So you'd agree that 8th graders should be allowed to operate chainsaws?
Posted by: Hank Fox | November 30, 2007 10:47 AM
Unbelievable! All religions at one point stop people from thinking rationally (or they want people not to think).But this one is just a kid. A 14 year old is not a legal age in any country how can the judge give such a vote? Isn't it the same case as some religious people are against all kind of Abortion "No matter the situation?". Even if a child is a rape victim and pregnant they say no abortion, and if an organization like Amnesty, fights for the right of people to choose, they go mental!
Posted by: Ali | November 30, 2007 10:48 AM
It seems to me that part of the issue here is that our society is so profoundly confused as to the issue of adulthood. As we all know, when we are taking a "tough on crime" approach, 14 and 15 year olds are often tried as adults. Hell, in States like Kansas, 10 year olds can be tried as adults.
On the other hand there are a whole class of legal rulings, concerning reproductive rights or statutory rape laws for instance, where there is a very bright line of adulthood and 15 and 16 year olds are on the other side of it.
Essentially, we have decided as a society to make the definition of adulthood discretionary.
This is all in the way of saying that I don't think the judge's decision is all that surprising in that context. I don't think it would be proper to make the decision that the child is only a child if he or she makes a decision which we think is stupid. To the degree that there is any discretion at all about whether or not a a 14 year old is competent to make these sorts of decisions, and clearly the law has decided that there is such discretion, then the decision cannot realistically involve whether or not the judge agrees with the tenets of the child's faith. I think we can all see the danger in that.
The judge should really only concern himself with 2 questions: 1) can a 14 year old be considered competent to make medical decisions, 2) is the 14 year old in question mentally and emotionally competent to make such decisions?
As I say, point 1 is something of a contentious issue in our society but the current state of affairs seems to be that we grant judges and other legal bodies discretion to decide this issue in individual cases. On point 2, as much as I know about the case, the kid in question does not suffer from any sort of diagnosed mental illness and is not otherwise emotionally or mentally impaired. He just believes a stupid thing and it is not the court's place to force him to act against his stupid belief.
My opinion: The aunt bears the brunt of the blame here. The judge acted reasonably within his discretion to not force a medical procedure on someone who could very clearly indicate they didn't want it.
Posted by: brent | November 30, 2007 10:48 AM
I think "abuse" is a better label for religion. It's hard for me to think of filling a kid's head with images of hellfire and eternal damnation and doctrines about bodily purity as being neglegent. Especially when it comes to Jehova's Witnesses. They are extremely capricious when it comes to their children, and are always hovering over them attempting to retard their social development, and go so far as to offer the children stark choices like, "you can have your worldly friends, but not us and God at the same time". It's abuse in the sense that an overbearing husband is abusive.
Posted by: Dustin | November 30, 2007 10:52 AM
And, in the "religion kills" vein, we have these exemplars of morality. So, I suppose I don't technically think it's fair to label religion as just "child abuse". It abuses everyone.
Posted by: Dustin | November 30, 2007 10:56 AM
Having watched my cousin die a long lingering miserable death from leukemia, I'm not quite as sanguine as Waterdog about the odds of surviving the disease. Enormous progress has been made, especially with childhood leukemias, but some people still die. Some die from the leukemia, some die from the treatments. As I noted, the article doesn't give much information. Survivability depends on multiple factors: how early a diagnosis is made, how the individual patient responds to initial treatments, and so on. We don't have that information so assuming the patient would have survived if only he'd allowed transfusions may be purely wishful thinking.
Would we all be as outraged about the young man refusing treatment if he hadn't said it was against his religion but had instead said he didn't like the odds?
Posted by: Nan | November 30, 2007 10:59 AM
Darwin Award!
(FWIW, I consider a serious 14-yr old old enough to make most medical decisions).
Posted by: Anonymous coward | November 30, 2007 10:59 AM
There is a difference, there, and it has nothing to do with 'profound confusion'.
If a child commits a violent crime, those laws don't consider him an adult because he/she has a greater ability to weigh the consequences, but its because there is a fear that the child will remain such a great menace as to be un-rehabitatable (I do not agree, but that's what I think the point is).
As such, a child who is willing to die to remain 'pure' is not a societal menace, and clearly, doesn't have a great ability to weigh the consequences of such a decision.
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | November 30, 2007 11:00 AM
You know, they probably *aren't* allowed to operate chainsaws, just like I couldn't find anywhere to rent me a flamethrower the other weekend when I found a wasps' nest in the garage.
Goddamn nanny state.
Posted by: thalarctos | November 30, 2007 11:02 AM
"Religion is child abuse. It strips kids of the critical reasoning abilities that can save their lives."
I agree that religious thought control is abusive, regardless of how accountable its practitioners are ("virus" victim vs. a**hole). Since all religions practice thought control on children to some extent, PZ's statement is not an over-generalization.
To me, the worst part of this control is not the beliefs they promote, which are bad enough, but the ideas they condition their followers NOT to think about, which is anything which might undermine their beliefs. This includes critical thinking and a lot more. These ideas are not merely omitted from their education, they are associated with the subtle work of the devil and taboo for discussion. A child brought up this way feels guilty every time a thought pops into his head which doesn't mesh with what he's supposed to believe. Eventually he squelches these thoughts automatically, and he is handicapped for life, unless he manages to overcome the fear of thinking.
That's how it felt to me, anyway.
Posted by: charley | November 30, 2007 11:02 AM
Actually, we do have that information. One of the news reports states that doctors quoted Dennis' odds at around a 70% chance of long term survival. Do you think they just pulled that number out of their asses? No, such estimates are based on loads of data and science that allow us to tally up prognostic factors and determine a patient's odds of survival based on stage, tumor, and histopathological findings (and more and more often these days molecular profiling).
Posted by: Orac | November 30, 2007 11:02 AM
Oops. Hit "Post" too soon.
So, to conclude, it is not "wishful thinking" to conclude that the boy would have had a very good chance of surviving his cancer if he had accepted a blood transfusions. Certainly his odds would have been very much better than his odds if he didn't accept one, which were very close to zero.
Posted by: Orac | November 30, 2007 11:04 AM
We saw something similar. They weren't JWs, they were faith healers from a blot of fundies out in the boonies. Young 2nd grade school kid, childhood leukemia, no treatment.
Childhood leukemia is often curable, this wasn't an unusual type or anything. The docs went to court because in this state denying medical care to minors is illegal. Big court case, by the time treatment was ordered the kid was too far gone and died soon after.
It was such a hassle no one bothers anymore. The fundies are still there. Sometimes their kids get sick and get well. Sometimes they die.
Posted by: raven | November 30, 2007 11:10 AM
By Guido,
"Children are allowed to die because religious motives but grown ups cannot get euthanasia if they wish so..."
Interesting isn't it. Religious motives allow for the death of a child, while the very same motives keeps adults from making the very same decision.
Posted by: Fentwin | November 30, 2007 11:10 AM
It's a bit off topic, but I'd say that most religions, at least, are profoundly negative all on their own, for a child, quite apart from whether or not they cause the child to cooperate in his own effective murder, but for reasons closely related to what happened here. They're abusive purely in the sense that they do cripple critical thinking, enforce unthinking allegiance to an absolute authority--and worst of all, to one which is constructed on demonstrably false pretenses, and pretenses the child almost certainly knows are false.
In my opinion, this is one of the worst things about religions--a apparently diffuse harm, but an ubiquitous one, and one with far reaching effects in society, apart from being, really, a miserable and vicious thing to do to a human mind. The harm is: religions teach children to lie--to themselves, and to others. They teach them to disregard the evidence of their own eyes, to disregard the conclusions of their own faculties, and, finally, they reward the declaration of fealty to something the child almost certainly knows is a lie. The underlying message is clear enough: honesty is worth less than loyalty to the tribe. And the truth is what is most socially convenient for it to be.
But the child will always know this is the deal they've cut, on some level, even into adulthood. And they will always know the self-contempt that follows from it, as long as they adhere to this value. It is a misery I think the world could well do with much less of.
Posted by: AJ Milne | November 30, 2007 11:11 AM
The odds are real.
Posted by: MartinM | November 30, 2007 11:12 AM
Childhood leukemia outcomes can be quite good although with each patient there is no guarantee. I know one case well that was diagnosed in teens. He is now over 60 with kids and grandkids.
Posted by: raven | November 30, 2007 11:16 AM
While we give parents and guardians of minors nearly full authority over the juveniles in their care, they should be held responsible when their lifestyle choices and beliefs lead to the harm or deaths of these juveniles. This includes girls who suffer harm from being forced to carry a pregnancy to term by anti-choice parents and cases like this, where it is pretty clear that the aunt's religion unduly influenced the patient.
On the other hand, we have adult women in this country still being denied the right to seek elective sterilization because "they might change their mind". How can the decision of a brainwashed teenager to die be weighed as more valid than a legal adult's desire to pursue permanent contraception? There are far too many inconsistencies introduced when religion is involved - either a person's decision about their health and life should be respected or not, regardless of religion.
Posted by: MemeGene | November 30, 2007 11:16 AM
Speaking of religion killing, in light of recent events in the Sudan, I have renamed my ball python (formerly "Snakers") Mohammed. Cruel stupidity should always have consequences. Let the backlash begin.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | November 30, 2007 11:19 AM
How to make a homemade flame thrower out of a Supersoaker.
To paraphrase Homer Simpson:
"Ah, the Internet. The cause of, and the solution to, all of life's problems."
Posted by: Hank Fox | November 30, 2007 11:22 AM