Adamah,
For varied reasons you and I hold different views on how much the teens in Beliaev’s study (assuming there were teens in the group) would influence the number I concluded. That aside for a moment, I’m not sure your direct comparison of legality has the effect you think because in service areas like the USA though the law is different I’m not so sure the outcome is different. Let me explain what I mean.
Doctors in the USA have a duty to provide appropriate care for all patients.
When an adult patient refuses appropriate care doctors are not allowed to overturn the decision unless the patient is incompetent or does not have a healthcare proxy completed when they were competent.
When a doctor is confronted with refusal of treatment by a minor or parents/guardians of a minor a legal and ethical challenge arises over what is appropriate care for the patient when alternative treatment exists. Because there is much gray area in medical science as to what is appropriate care under most circumstances doctors in the USA have been compelled to apply alternative medical therapy though it’s not what they think is most appropriate. In effect, they are compelled by peers and this pressure is brought to bear through the conduit of Watchtower’s Hospital Liaison Committee groups.
In comes practitioners like James Isbister and Aryeh Shander. These men have good credentials and training, and they are influential when called upon for consultation. Both these men (and many more like them with their own ideas of appropriate use of blood product) have made a pretty good living off the patient population of JWs. I’m not suggesting these men have somehow mistreated this patient population or otherwise behaved inappropriately. What I’m suggesting is that when these men speak up about success they’ve had treating JWs without blood it places pressure on local clinicians to approximate the same therapy in order to avoid complications such as legal costs.
I don’t want to reveal his name, but I know a now-retired cardiologist who was among the very best in the world at treating pediatric heart patients. I was in the room with him several years ago with a JW child under discussion. He flatly refused a particular treatment option saying it was an unethical because there was a safer option that would fix the problem whereas the treatment at issue was only temporary and the safer option would eventually have to be performed. He explained in detail one risk in particular of the temporary fix. He said it would place undo stress on the child’s heart causing it to enlarge, which would place the child at increased risk of death. The local HLC member in the room had prearranged a phone conference with another world-class pediatric cardiologist. This consultant went on and on about how the procedure was completely acceptable and was well within standards risk acceptability. She plied lots of information on how many times she’s performed this procedure with success. The heart surgeon on my end was upset by this consult, but he eventually agreed to perform the temporary fix job. The child died 1-1/2 years later of an enlarged heart at a hospital more than 300 miles away from the cardiologist.
This thing happened to a near infant. I’ve been in rooms on many occasions where the same thing was done, and more often than most people would expect, the physician lays down and does what he or she’s asked.
That baby’s cause of death was not filed as “refused blood”. But that’s what caused that child to lose its life.
This is how things have been structured and to this day we still have children dying as the result.
Have you read the Watchtower organization’s May 22, 1994 journal issue of Awake? Take a look. You’ll see what I’m talking about.
Marvin Shilmer