[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] Suicide by Dogma...

I found this interesting for a number of reasons:

Jehovah's Witness mother dies after refusing blood transfusion after giving birth to twins

Last updated at 12:56pm on 5th November 2007

A devout Jehovah's Witness died just hours after giving birth to twins - as her strict faith barred her from receiving a life-saving blood transfusion.

Despite desperate pleas from doctors, Emma Gough, 22, and her family, including her husband of nearly two years Anthony, 24, resolutely refused treatment.

The young mother had time to cradle her newborn twins, a boy and a girl, before falling unconscious from heavy blood loss.

Speaking yesterday, family friend Peter Welsh, 24, who was best man at the couple's wedding, said: "Everyone is devastated by what has happened. Anthony is in pieces.

"We can't believe she died after childbirth in this day and age, with all the technology there is." (full story)

Do you see the huge, obvious problem here?

They can't believe she died because of the level of today's technology, yet they don't understand that technology was rendered absolutely useless by their primitive and irrelevant beliefs. Moreover, by denying a rather common life-saving procedure because of their religious beliefs, they felt they were more qualified to make medical decisions than the physicians who were begging to save this woman's life.

Personally, I find this family's grief confusing and a little insulting. Did they somehow believe that things would turn out differently as this woman lay bleeding to death while they prevented her access to something which would have saved her life? I mean, would anyone in their right mind sit idly by and expect things to turn out fine while a small child sits in the corner playing with a loaded handgun?

Perhaps the most telling quote in all of this can be found coming from Paul Gillies --spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses in Britain:

"We take the views on blood that we do because we want to have a good conscience."

I wonder where that good conscience is now considering that, as a result of the twisted, uneducated notions of these god-soaked ninnies, two children will never know their mother.

The fact is, everyone aside from the doctors involved in this tragedy should be happy. This woman's religious beliefs remained in tact as they demanded, she was shown the utmost respect for those beliefs, and whatever grief this family may feel is merely the result of their own selfish desires to have this woman in their lives contrary to what they must believe to be their god's wishes.

It's a genuinely heartbreaking story for anyone who is not a Jehovah's Witness. However, keep in mind that this woman, and her family, clearly valued their crippling mythology more than they valued this woman's life. And, how can they be sad when it's clear that this is what their god wanted:

[Gillies] went on: "For us, the decision about blood isn't as difficult as people would imagine because we have confidence that the Creator knows what he is talking about."

And people always say that religion isn't dangerous.

Personally, I am actually quite angry and somewhat sickened by this story. These two newborn children are going to grow up being taught that their mother deserved to die, that their god didn't feel she belonged in their lives, that she herself didn't want to be in their lives, and that the ideology of those who murdered her mother is good and just and the right thing to believe.

It's suicide to live like this in the 21st Century.

-DP

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 11/05/2007 11:34:00 AM