A baby's life on the line unless hospital's petition trumps parents religious beliefs

[moobu2]

Parents, hospital at odds over baby's care

Jehovah's Witnesses' beliefs prohibit blood transfusions, which doctors say she needs.


A baby's life may hinge on whether a hospital's petition trumps the religious beliefs of her parents.

A petition filed by Dupont Hospital on Thursday in Allen Superior Court asked the court to order blood transfusions if they are necessary for “Baby Girl Binns,” who is anemic and was born prematurely May 14, at about 25 weeks into her mother's pregnancy.

According to court documents, the baby is in the neonatal intensive care unit and will need at least one blood transfusion and possibly more.

The petition says the mother, Stephanie C. Binns, and her husband, Pierre Binns, who are both Jehovah's Witnesses, are placing their daughter at risk by refusing transfusions based on their religious beliefs.

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[ejpoeta]

1. well, they do not believe in transfusions. it's sad that a baby could die because her parents

don't want her to receive a blood transfusion.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Has anybody asked the baby what her religious belief are?

After all, she is not necessarily a Jehovah's Witness. She could be a Scientologist.

If the parents want to refuse treatment for themselves, fine. But they are custodians, not owners, of their baby. Their religious beliefs are not hers until she adopts them.

I've always been just a little pissed that my folks made an assumption about my feelings on circumcision.

[rateyes]

3. And, since she is too young to make such a decision,

and the state has an overwhelming responsibility in preserving citizens' lives, I say force the blood transfusion.

[moobu2]

4. Jehovah's Witness baby gets blood substitute

In a compromise designed to accommodate the beliefs of a Jehovah's Witness couple, Dupont Hospital will use a blood substitute on the couple's anemic baby while reserving the right to transfuse blood to save the baby girl's life, if necessary.

An Allen Superior Court order that the hospital requested last week to transfuse blood for the premature baby if needed was approved at a family court hearing, according to Lynn Vann, the minister for Pierre and Stephanie C. Binns, the parents of the baby girl born May 14.

The Binnses couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday, but on Tuesday, Stephanie Binns said she and her husband were following biblical passages forbidding ingesting blood. Genesis 9:4 of the Jehovah's Witnesses New World Translation of the Bible on its Web site says, “Only flesh with its soul — its blood — YOU must not eat.”


<snip>

“The right to practice religion freely does not include the liberty to expose the community or child to communicable disease, or the latter to ill health or death,” Judge Wiley B. Rutledge wrote in the majority opinion. “Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves, but it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion.”


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