The Prince ruling has further application today in the question of blood transfusions. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions, even to save their lives, because they consider it to be against the will of God. Despite this, children can be forced to accept them based upon the reasoning in the Prince case: namely, that the state has broad powers to protect the interests of children and that the free exercise rights of children are narrower than those of adults.
Part 3: Pledging the Flag (background)
This issue centers on whether or not the government can force a child to salute the American flag. It is bizarre to think that the question is not settled and that lawmakers even today think that they can still attempt to do this, but it appears that the lessons of the two Supreme Court cases involved have not yet been learned.
Mandatory flag pledges in public schools were a product of war-inspired America, with the first appearing in several states during the Spanish-American war. Many more joined during World War I, with the recently formed ACLU tracking only a few dissents. It wasn't until World War II was drawing close that the practice was challenged directly in a way that rose through the court system.
In Minnersville School District v. Gobitis, two Jehovah's Witness school children, 10 and 12 years old, were suspended from school because they refused to salute the American flag during mandatory morning exercises. According to their beliefs, the Bible forbids having any false idols before God; and since all human governments are ultimately instituted by Satan, pledging to them would be a sin.
In a preview of what was to come, the children suffered horrible teasing, taunting, and attacks from the other kids. A local Catholic church started a boycott of the family store and business dropped off. Because of their eventual expulsion, their father had to pay for them to enroll in a private school, resulting in even more economic hardship.
What these bare facts fail to adequately describe is just how rancorous the situation really was. Gobitis (actually Gobitas, but a court clerk's error has made the altered name stick ever since) was only recently a convert to Jehovah's Witnesses. The national leadership had recently decided to make an issue of the forced pledges and asked people to stand up for their rights.
Jehovah's Witnesses who challenged the practice were accused of working with or being duped by German sympathizers - which is ironic, because many Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany were persecuted for refusing to pledge allegiance to Hitler. It is also ironic because, at the time, many flag pledges were done not with the right hand over the heart as they are today, but instead with an outstretched right hand which has now become associated with the "Sieg Heil" salute of the Nazis.
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| Jehovah's Witnesses (about.com) Part 2 a and beginning of Part 3 |
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kjac
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May 16 @ 4:08PM
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Saving a child's life is never the wrong thing to do IMO.
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blueyed_cdn_girl
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May 16 @ 4:12PM
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I agree with Kjac,,, saving the child's life is first and foremost!
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HopelesslyHopeful
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May 16 @ 4:25PM
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Oh.. then you agree with blowing up abortion clinics? Because that is putting the life of the children first and foremost by killing the adults that kill the children.
See, the most ignorant part of the whole blood tranfusion issue, as concerns most people's objections is this : you don't give a blood transfusion to a child if you want to save their life! It does such incredible harm to the human body to go through a blood tranfusion that it was only meant to be used as a last ditch effort to begin with and many alternatives have been discovered or created to deal with the issues for which a blood transfusion used to be applicable.
Most doctors wouldn't even consider doing a blood transfusion as by the time you are so bad off that you might need something that drastic to be done to you, you are very unlikely to ever recover and they consider any doctors who use them before that point to be unethical in the extreme.
Man, go do some serious research on blood tranfusions and the harm they do .. not related to Jehovah's Witnesses ,but related to medicine. Sometimes blood does need to be built back up, due to loss, but they usually don't use blood for that anymore, either.
Except, you know, if you go to the hospital and they know you are one of Jehovah's Witnesses .. then they want to stick blood in you all over the place.
I had a miscarriage and almost died from blood loss but they had no urge to give me a tranfusion or anything, then, I can tell you.
Yet, one time, when I was in the hospital for a different reason, they tried to give me a transfusion as soon as my sister visited and they decided I, like her, was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. I told them "I am not baptised." and they called off the Emergency.
Do the research!
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HopelesslyHopeful
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May 16 @ 4:32PM
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Aside from that there is a matter of parental responsibility and religious belief.
Here's a fact of life for you: everyone dies, all your children will die if you have any, all your family will die, you will die.
The government does not dictate medical treatment for children. You cannot be forced to get shots for your child.. you can be forced to keep them out of school if you do not get the shots, however. Some people believe shots are detrimental to health and some people believe they are essential to maintain health. In either case, it is their call: their children.
Is it saving your child's life to hand them over to a man who wants to rape them but is going to shoot them in the head if you don't let him? Would you hand them over?
Would you allow anything that disgusting to happen to your children? At the whim of a madman who wants to do things that are illegal, immoral, and harmful to the child to the point where they will probably die from it anyway and which may affect their moral upbringing and their relationship to God and/or their family forevermore .. if they survive it?
Then, if you were a Christian, you would not allow a blood transfusion. Because that is a rape of the body by a doctor who has no excuse for wanting to perform it and whether or not he threatens to harm your child, you stick to your beliefs which have solid backing by both the Holy Scriptures and by medical evidence.
Blood transfusions are detrimental to your health.. almost no one ever survives them and those who do, they have complications. What decent parent wouldn't protect their children from that? Especially when it is not even needed, but is only being forced on their child out of prejudice against the religious beliefs of the parent?
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HopelesslyHopeful
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May 16 @ 4:40PM
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Basically, my point is that YOU ARE RIGHT kjac .. saving the child's life is most important.
But just because someone is wearing a lab coat doesn't mean that they are impartial, unbiased, or even sane.
There are many children who were forced to get blood tranfusions even though other doctors said that there were alternatives or that they were completely unnecessary, even.
That's why I said it was rape.
If someone who is informed elects to get a blood tranfusion, that is their call. But a parent has to make those decisions for their child and they have to decide based on their information. And sorry, but, Jehovah's Witnesses are some of the best informed people on the planet, in the majority, when it comes to that issue .. because it is a serious issue to them! They study up on it and new medical techniques, etc. so that, God forbid, if that situation comes up they are well armed with the facts and can suggest those alternatives.
Religious prejudice is no excuse to rape or mutilate the bodies of children, by medical procedure, or otherwise!
And I would say that about the children of anyone, of any religion or none.
Either is religious belief, no. . but refusing a blood tranfusion is not rape .. it's denying that procedure and expecting alternatives to be discussed. A very normal,rational, human response from a concerned parent.
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kjac
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May 16 @ 5:55PM
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My father almost died from internal bleeding caused by colitis. But because of blood transfusions, my father is alive today. I rather enjoy the fact that the doctors you so readily brand as evil were able to transfuse enough blood into his body to save his life.
To somehow connect the doctors saving his life to abortion clinic bombers or rape is absurd at best.
Just to inform the God Witnesses a little further, my father woukld be dead today without blood trasfusions. Because of them he is alive. No evil scientist in a labcoat, just a doctor. A doctor who did the right thing, as I hope he will continue to do to people of ALL religions.
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HopelesslyHopeful
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May 16 @ 11:35PM
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My father almost died from internal bleeding caused by colitis. But because of blood transfusions, my father is alive today. I rather enjoy the fact that the doctors you so readily brand as evil were able to transfuse enough blood into his body to save his life.
To somehow connect the doctors saving his life to abortion clinic bombers or rape is absurd at best.
Just to inform the God Witnesses a little further, my father woukld be dead today without blood trasfusions. Because of them he is alive. No evil scientist in a labcoat, just a doctor. A doctor who did the right thing, as I hope he will continue to do to people of ALL religions.
Your father was a full grown man capable of making his own choices. And he did have a choice .. it wasn't forced on him. End of story regarding your father.
But, what about the people who have a doctor that says they don't even need a blood tranfusion and yet another doctor says that they do and decides to force them to have one?
What about the people who choose of their own free will not to get blood tranfusions but they are under 18 and so they are forced to get one?
Why is it people have the right to choose euthenasia .. but they don't have the right to choose to refuse to have someone else's body fluids pumped into them?
There is no logic in that. And yes, that is rape: rape is a violent act perpetrated against your body, using your body against your will. Your father was not raped. Many children were, by doctors, and their parents were forced to endure it and were told that it is illegal to not allow the rape of their children by medical doctors.
What if a doctor just walked up to you and said "Oh. You are an atheist: hmm ... the medical tests indicate you need 1/2 your liver cut away. Otherwise you will die!" ? Would that be a violent act then? A hate crime?
Because you are missing two solid bits of information no matter how many times I say them to you : 1) In most cases the doctors decide that Jehovah's Witnesses need blood tranfusions AFTER they learn that they are Jehovah's Witnesses .. but they had the same illness before the doctor knew that! So it is rape and it is a hate crime and it is religious persecution. 2) Very few doctors in the world, the entire world, would even consider performing a blood transfusion under any other circumstances because they are so bad for the patients that usually they die from having the tranfusion.
I did not connect the doctors saving your father's life, allegedly, to bombing abortion clinics. I connected your belief that it is alright for doctors to perpetrate hate crimes against persons of certain religious backgrounds with bombing abortion clinics. Either way it's all for the children, right? To people who think that way, it is.
And what if you knew that your father hated the idea of blood transfusions and he would rather die, but he was not conscious? Does that give you the right to force it on him? To disrespect who and what he is? Would it if he was 16 and your son instead? 13? 12? At what age is it okay to discount a person as not having human rights?
Bet you still didn't look up the information on blood transfusions from a medical perspective, did you? I did!
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