Ian McEwan: the law versus religious belief

[muriel_volestrangler]

On the face of it, a simple moral premise: one rescued and flourishing child is better than two dead. But how was the law to sanction murder, and set aside the insistence of the parents, endorsed by the then Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, that both children should be left to die?
...
Just as religion and religious passion and disputes have pervaded domestic and international politics to an extent we could not have predicted 20 years ago, so they have vigorously entered, or re-entered, the private realm, and therefore the family courts. In the case of the conjoined twins, Ward ruled against the parents and for the hospital. But it was, as the nice legal term has it, "an anxious question". The operation went ahead, the weaker baby died (or, as the then Archbishop of Westminster might have put it, was judicially murdered), while its sibling underwent extensive reconstructive surgery and flourished.
...
Three years after my supper with that bench of judges, Ward told me of a Jehovah's Witness case he had once presided over. At the time he was doing his turn as duty judge, ready at the end of a phone, nights and weekends, to deal with emergency applications to the court. One came late in the evening from a hospital looking for permission to transfuse a Jehovah's Witness teenager against his and his parents' wishes. The boy was suffering from a form of leukaemia that was relatively easy to cure. The drugs the doctors wanted to use would compromise his already declining blood count. The medical staff were fiercely opposed to losing a patient they thought they could cure. The matter was urgent. Within a short time, the various parties, their representatives and expert witnesses assembled in the Royal Courts of Justice to present evidence and argument to the judge.
...
Months later, Ward took the boy (now in good health) and his father to a football match, which they watched from the directors' box. The young man was able to meet his football heroes. The gleam of joy in his eyes, his excitement at being alive, was a sight the judge would never forget. The court's decision was vindicated. But the story did not end there. A few years later the young Witness was readmitted to hospital and needed another blood transfusion. By then, he was old enough to make an independent decision. He refused treatment and died for his beliefs.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/ian-mcewan-law-versus-religious-belief

You can save children from their parents' religion with the law, but you can't save adults from their own.

[cleanhippie]

1. That children need the force of law to protect them from religious belief speaks volumes

About religious beliefs.