Further thoughts on bleeding to death

Following up on the post about the jehova's witness who let herself bleed to death leaving her children motherless I did say in response to Leah who left some comments that I'd think about the matter further.

Over the weekend I came across this in the Independent on Sunday, an article with a former JW who went through something similar but survived and subsequently left the cult (they call it a "sect" in the paper but lets call a spade a spade here)

To be fair to Leah as well (I may be a grumpy dragon but I'm a fair one) the person being interviewed makes the point about the fear of being thrown out of the JWs and losing the world you knew is a major thing...

"When I was in labour... no way was I in any physical or emotional state to say that I might have wanted a transfusion... I'd have been cast out of the religion, which at that point was the last thing I wanted. I needed the network that being a Jehovah's Witness gave you. Plus it's a very controlling religion, and I didn't even think of challenging it."

OK but waiting until you're in labour to question your adherence to a cult that is going to deny you life saving treatment maybe wasn't the brightest of moves. Sure leaving any cult isn't easy but you would have thought that the idea might have crossed your mind that this was potentially going to kill you? I don't know, maybe the brainwashing that is religion (all of them) is too strong for most people and they are just conditioned not to ask the awkward questions. Just another reason why I loathe religion so much.

Anyway, congrats to Mrs Underhill (bet she's called Baggins really) for getting out and she makes an interesting point:

"I think that in extreme cases, doctors should be able to override a Jehovah's Witness's wishes," she added.

I would have thought that this would actually be possible under mental heath legisation and checked with Mrs Dracunculus who, as part of her professional duties, has to drag loons off the street from time to time.

Section 2 of the Mental Health Act contains the provision to compulsorily take a person against their will into hospital and administer treatment if: "he ought to be so detained in the interests of his own health or safety or with a view to the protection of other persons."

It's not generally done to adults although a different set of laws have been used to take JW's kids off them when the children needed life saving surgery and the parents refused because a blood transfusion would have been necessary. The difficulty is you have to show that the person concerned is, to use the vernacular, as mad as a lorry.

I would have thought that believing in an invisible man in the sky who made the world in six days and will throw you into a pit of eternal torment should you so much as drink a cup of tea would count as insanity.