Boy refusing blood due to religious beliefs dies

[hotmommy]

FOXNews.com - Teen Jehovah's Witness Leukemia Patient Dies After Refusing Blood Transfusion - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — A few hours after a Mount Vernon judge ruled that a 14-year-old Jehovah's Witness sick with leukemia had the right to refuse a blood transfusion, even though that refusal might kill him, the boy died in a Seattle hospital.
Dennis Lindberg of Mount Vernon died shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday in his bed at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, the boy's biological 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, who is an aunt.
Earlier Wednesday, Skagit County Superior Court Judge John Meyer denied a motion by the state to force the boy to have a blood transfusion. The judge said the eighth-grader knows "he's basically giving himself a death sentence."
Doctors diagnosed the boy with leukemia in early November and began treating him with 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 Sr. 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 legal guardian, his aunt Dianna Mincin, who is also a Jehovah's Witness.
Mincin has declined to talk about the case.
The boy's father told the P-I the ruling shocked him but after visiting his son later in the day Wednesday, he decided not to appeal. He said doctors told him Wednesday evening that the boy, unconscious since Tuesday, had likely suffered brain damage.
Several friends of Lindberg and of his parents attended Wednesday's hearing, and some ran out crying when the judge announced his decision.
"Dennis does present himself as a very mature man. But he really is just a child trying to please the adults around him," said Jan Curry, whose daughter, Morgan, is his friend.
With the transfusions and other treatment, the boy had been give a 70 percent chance of surviving the next five years, the judge said in court, based on what the boy's doctors told him.
Still, the judge said his decision was based strictly on facts.
"I don't believe Dennis' decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision," Meyer said during Wednesday's 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."

He had every right to refuse, but now I wonder if his parents feel differenly now that he's died.

[nwgirl]

I doubt it. Devote religious nuts like that seem to think that death is preordained. Apparently in this case, death was better than the "unclean and unworthy" blood tranfusion. Wonder how many other kids with terminal diseases they have who they'll help kill?

[sputnik]

one less moron in the gene pool.

[DitaPage*]

oh here we go....

JW's simply don't believe in blood tranfusions; they live by the Bible and in there somewhere it says that they shouldn't take blood. They believe that if it comes to the point where a blood tranfusion is needed to stay alive, they refuse it, because they believe that this is a temporary world, not Jehovah's world. This is also why they refuse to vote; and they are excused from it in Australia. They believe it's Satans system and Armageddon will be the end of it. I wont go into it, but it makes alot of sense.

[twitchy]

Idiots. A blood transfusion is a gift from a stranger who thought enough of human life to give something that could help some fellow being. The human body replenishes the blood cells every three months. Even if he was "unclean", it would be temporary.

[Grimmlok]

eh, more blood for me, one less retard for the planet.

[twitchy]

You a vampire?

[Dixie Normos]

Wouldn't that be considered suicide...which is illegal in the USA?

Meh...I'm pro-choice, his body his choice.

[Grimmlok]

Originally Posted by twitchy

You a vampire?

shhhhhhh.

[Honey]

I think this is stupid, but it was his choice...meh

[msdeb]

my daughter is 14, and i shudder to think of her making an important decision like that.

[WitchHazelEyed]

Originally Posted by Raspberry gashes

it makes alot of sense.

except to most of us, to which it makes no sense.....

[moomies]

I've been thinking about euthanasia lately. I would want a right to choose if/when/how I want to die. But then I'm old enough and if I ever need to decide if I want to put an end to medical intervention, it would have to be something very deadly already with a low chance of survival.

[pacific breeze]

An overdose of morphine is always a sure thing.

[january]

You know, if he was an adult, it would be one thing. But at 14 he is still a child to deal with such important life decisions and obviously he's been brainwashed by this indoctrination of refusing blood treatments. Was it really his religious inclination, or someone he didn't want to hurt? I don't know if he's old enough to make such a decision. Sad, now he can't. And where does it say in the Bible that you can't take the blood of another human being? I know that it says you shouldn't eat the meat of an animal with its life-blood still in it, in the Old Testament (basically saying that meat should be cooked all the way through and free of any blood, which at that time could have been a precaution to avoid food poisoning, not just a religious doctrine). I think thats something that was created by this particular Church, and not a biblical passage.