I support the right of competent adults to die for their beliefs. I don't believe that parents have the right to sacrifice the lives of their children for these beliefs. As a society, we reject the types of brutal child sacrifices that were common in times past. It makes little difference that the advocates of this type of ritual may have been sincere in their beliefs. Society must protect the lives of the young and innocent.
The beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses may seem more benign, but they can be just as deadly. They are also willing to let their children die because of the religious symbolism of blood. This poses great moral dilemmas for the courts who sometimes feel compelled to intervene to protect innocent children.
Recently, this issue has been getting a lot of attention in Canada, where a set of premature sextuplets were born into a Jehovah's Witness family and given blood transfusions. The Winnipeg Free Press has an interesting article on this ongoing legal challenge.
See also this video about the sextuplets.
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