B.C. Sextuplets Seized for Blood Transfusions

[Aggie]

So, what, do they avoid ALL red meat, then?  You CAN NOT remove ALL the blood from red meat, even if you put it in a 10,000lb press... (WHY do you think it's RED? )  For that matter, I seriously doubt you could remove all the blood from ANY meat--so are they serious, and they are ALL vegetarians, then?

Doesn't kosher (and to some degree, halal) processing of meat aim to remove residual blood?  I don't know whether JW's follow kosher-type restrictions or not, but the practise of avoiding blood consumption isn't restricted to this religious group.  It would be interesting to know whether the blood-transfusion interpretation is made by any other non-JW groups....

[Griffin NoName]

I'm not so sure about that.  I think that if something is wrong after the fact, it's wrong before as well.  If a criminal act is about to be committed on the children by the parents, then they should be separated.

Ah, what about "WITH INTENT" - presumably JW's have always produced children with intent to deprive them of blood transfusions....

Doesn't kosher (and to some degree, halal) processing of meat aim to remove residual blood? 

Yes. But even then, we can't mix milk and meat 

I heard of a recipe that starts:

Take prime cut steak, drain blood, throw steak away,..... forgotten the rest of the recipe.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I'm not so sure about that.  I think that if something is wrong after the fact, it's wrong before as well.  If a criminal act is about to be committed on the children by the parents, then they should be separated.

There's a problem with "about to" in law enforcement.

You CANNOT (at least in the US) arrest someone who may or may not about to be committing a crime.

Probable cause is a slight exception to that, but it can get a policeman in trouble, if it is not obvious and clear-cut.

But, medical decisions are fraught with "what if" and "might have beens" and such.  Even hindsight, when speaking of medical decisions, is not always 20-20.

If you could be 100% certain of an outcome, based on a medical decision, that is a different thing--but 100% certainty is also a rare thing, for the most part (aside from trauma, obviously).

I dunno--it's a sticky wicket.  Either we DO believe in religious freedom or we do not.

If we do, we MUST be careful of the exceptions to that belief. Obviously, we don't allow human sacrifice (which was a common religious practice not all that long ago) even if the sacrifice is a willing volunteer.  And we certainly would not allow an unwilling "volunteer".

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In an aside, but partly topical, there is only now coming into use a number of blood replacement products. 

The following are all non-hemoglobin based, non-blood derived artificial blood replacements. This class of product only acts as an oxygen delivery system--but usually has many times the ability than real blood to carry oxygen.  Thus, in cases of very low blood pressure, or even complete heart failure, this stuff can keep the brain going for much longer than natural blood.  But, because it does not also carry other chemicals, like glucose, it is not a long-term replacement (the cells would need to "coast" on their internal stores of glucose--but oxygen starvation will lead to cell-death.  Glucose starvation will not-at least not as quickly.  Or so I've read).

Oxygent
SYNTETIC BLOOD INTERNATIONAL
PERFTORAN
Sanguine