Jehovah's Witness Blood Transfusion Case in BC

Another case is ongoing in Vancouver involving refusal of consent, on theological grounds, by parents of Jehovah's Witness faith to blood transfusions that are necessary for their children.

Canadian Press reports:

Children's right to life should trump parents' rights, B.C. lawyer tells court

The rights of children in need of potentially life-saving medical treatment should trump any rights of their parents, a lawyer argued Monday in a case involving blood transfusions given to four surviving sextuplets.

George Copley, who represents the Attorney General's Ministry, told a B.C. Supreme Court hearing that in a medical emergency the principles of fundamental justice under the Charter of Rights should protect children's lives instead of the parents' right to liberty.

"Surely where the life and health of the child is more immediately engaged, that is medical emergency care, then it's more compelling to prefer the child's right to life and health than to prefer the parents' rights, whatever they might be," he said

The babies were born at B.C. Children's hospital on Jan. 7, almost four months premature. Two of them died within weeks while four others - two boys and two girls - survived.

Copley was in court along with a lawyer for the Children's Ministry and lawyers for the parents of Canada's first sextuplets, who cannot be named under a publication ban.

The parents did not give doctors consent to transfuse the premature babies because their Jehovah's Witness religious beliefs prohibit such intervention even to save a life.

Their lawyer, Shane Brady, has argued that fundamental justice was denied to his clients and that the seizure of their children was a breach of the Charter of Rights.

On a somewhat related note, The Lawyers Weekly reports on a decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal, permitting a lawsuit against the lawyers for the Jehovah's Witness organizations. The suit was brought by the Estate of a teenager who died after allegedly being counselled to refuse blood transfusions:

Alberta’s top court has permitted the father of a Jehovah’s Witness teenager who died of leukemia to sue, on behalf of his daughter’s estate, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Canada lawyers who he alleges advised her to reject the blood transfusions prescribed by doctors.

... “The boundaries of freedom of religion are too unclear to warrant striking out” the plaintiff’s claims, the Alberta Court of Appeal wrote in reversing, in part, a decision below in favour of the defendant lawyers and the Watch Tower Society which struck some of the claims.

Speaking generally, Justices Peter Martin, Jack Watson and Frans Slatter commented in their per curiam judgment released Aug. 31 that “it is not at all clear to what extent a religious adherent can convince another person to take actions for religious reasons that will cause him or her bodily harm or even death, even if the religious belief is sincerely held."

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website, www.wiselaw.net