…at least according to The Supreme Court of Canada.
Most at the CBC seem quite happy with this decision – that a 14-year-old-girl’s rights were not violated when she was given a forcible blood transfusion against her wishes.
Read that again.
To me, this is one of the most horrifying decisions any court has ever made. The Court has said, essentially, that this girl did not own and control her body. Not even her parents owned and controlled her body. The Manitoba Child and Family Services department did.
For the record, I abhor the idiotic, superstitious nonsense that is religion and what it does to people. But so long as no one is harmed by this choice except the person making the choice or others that consent, then, yes, one is free to believe any mythological baloney they want.
Sometimes being free means letting people make choices that are not those we would make, or even choices that are wrong, or choices that are based on idiotic beliefs.
That girl was not being beaten, not being starved or otherwise abused against her will. She made the choice knowing the probable consequences. And no one but her would pay those consequences.
Ask yourself this – would you want some fundamentalist Christian sect or Muslim sect that somehow attained power to have this same power over your children, the power to invade their physical bodies against your wishes and theirs?
“Saving lives” is the same excuse used by the Chinese government to harvest the organs of Falun Gong prisoners. After all, if it means saving a life – especially the life of a child – why shouldn’t the state be able to invade your body against your will?
It is the excuse the fetus fetishists use to try to take away a woman’s right to choose or control her body as well.
That is exactly what this decision says – given a good enough reason (decided by them, of course) the state has the right to violate the bodily integrity of someone against their will, or against the will of their parents or legal guardians.
That is horrifying.
Don’t let our natural instinct to help a child open us to giving the state the power to control our bodies. That is far worse than one 14-year-old girl making a bad or stupid choice and dying.
theConverted 
June 27, 2009 at 9:15 am
Hahaha! Get real, in the war on reality, you brainwashed puppies will lose.
June 27, 2009 at 11:06 am
And that means what, exactly, OverTheHill…?
June 27, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Err, she was a MINOR. We DO generally let religiously brainwashed adults refuse transfusions, even when it mean certain death. You could say that after 18 you regain “ownership” of your body … and personally I’m satisfied with this legal balancing act.
June 27, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Children are people, too, Zeke. She doesn’t want a transfusion, and her parents support that decision (nutty as it is). Is that not enough for you?
June 27, 2009 at 10:59 pm
No, it’s not. Children would eat candy for every meal and play in the traffic. We don’t let them do those things either.
June 28, 2009 at 10:09 am
[…] The Government Owns Your Body from theConverted […]
June 29, 2009 at 6:10 am
Zeke,
You could say that after 18 you regain “ownership” of your body … and personally I’m satisfied with this legal balancing act.
If children don’t own their bodies, who does? Their parent(s)? Not in this case. Seems it is the state.
Your idea of children not owning their bodies opens the door to child abuse. After all, if a child doesn’t really own their body, then the parent’s do and they can do what they want with their ‘property’ – beat it, starve it or fuck it. After all, if you don’t really own your body, then none of that is assault, right?
And if you then say that the parents don’t own the child, then you are implying – as the title of my post suggests – that the state does.
You are accepting that the state can intervene with the very functioning of your body if them deem the reason ‘good enough” or “in your best interests”.
Like the Chinese who like to harvest organs from Falun Gong prisoners…they are saving lives after all. Maybe even the lives of children.
I think these kinds of religious beliefs ore delusional and idiotic. I would love to save that girl from possible death.
But the ends do not justify the means. I cannot condone an assault against someone because its for “their own good”. I could certainly intervene on her behalf to prevent her from being assaulted (especially if asked) but I could not assault her to help her.
If one wishes to “save” children from this, you energy is better spent convincing them to abandon their faith, or convincing the parents to. It is better spent looking for alternatives to transfusions (artificial blood etc). Violating some ones bodily integrity and right to choose their own life is not the way to do it. Especially not allowing the state that kind of power.
Children would eat candy for every meal and play in the traffic. We don’t let them do those things either.
We also don’t get agents of the state to physically assault and violate them to prevent these things. Talk about false equivalence.
I am a father of 3 kids under 10 and I would fight anyone who decided to disregard my kids wishes when it came to their own bodies, or my wishes. What I decide is best for MY kids is none of you business nor the business of any bureaucratic leech at “child and Family Services”…
Sorry Zeke, you are wrong.
June 30, 2009 at 6:41 pm
You’re hung up on the notion of “ownership of the body”, when what we’re really talking about here is behaviour–the state’s right to restrict the behaviour of someone (i.e. the parents in this case) who are putting another’s life at risk (in this case a child who does not have the capacity to make these decisions for herself). I daresay if your neighbour was engaging in an activity that was endangering one of your kids, you’d be only too happy for the state to step in and restrict his ability to do so.
I am not wrong–in fact my opinion is backed up by hundreds of years of jurisprudence under the common law. You–on the other hand–are spouting naive libertarian dogma, that sounds appealing to people until they stop and truly consider what the consequences of life under such a regime would be.
But don’t worry … many of us were rabid Ayn Rand devotees early in our lives. Wisdom and experience (aka age) solves all 🙂
June 30, 2009 at 6:56 pm
The state has no right to restrict any behaviour because the state is an illegitimate exercise of coercion. No one that I know agreed voluntarily to obey the diktats of any state, they are forced to by the threat of violence.
I daresay if your neighbour was engaging in an activity that was endangering one of your kids, you’d be only too happy for the state to step in and restrict his ability to do so.
No Zeke, I’d do something about it myself.
that sounds appealing to people until they stop and truly consider what the consequences of life under such a regime would be.
Yes, it would be free. Scary eh?
But don’t worry … many of us were rabid Ayn Rand devotees early in our lives. Wisdom and experience (aka age) solves all
I don’t particularly like Ayn Rand – she wasn’t anarchistic enough. I much prefer Murray Rothbard, Frederic Bastiat and the likes of Gustav Molinari…
Oh, and I’m 42. I have pletny of wisdom and experience. It is why I am no longer a member of the NDP and am now a Market Anarchist.
But you are free to live as you will, so long as it doesn’t harm me. Pity you can’t grant that same right to me or others and feel the state should be allowed to invade someone’s body.
If I don’t own my own body, then nothing else matters. Without self-ownership, there is no free speech, no free expression and no private property, no right to my life. If I don’t own my body, who does?
Maybe when you get a little older, you’ll understand this…
August 8, 2009 at 1:32 am
“But you are free to live as you will, so long as it doesn’t harm me. Pity you can’t grant that same right to me or others and feel the state should be allowed to invade someone’s body.”
Except buying up natural resources and then charging for them does harm me. Forcing me to prostitute myself to a business in order to even eat does harm me. Fencing off property arbitrarily according to some esoteric philosophy does harm me. You shooting your neighbor for harming your child does harm me. You smoking in a restaurant does harm me. Polluting does harm me. Overfishing does harm me. Speeding does harm me.
We are not discrete olympian gods who only meet to agree to exchange things on equal footing. We are inherently social creatures inseperably intertwined in prexisting conditions of privileged and exploitation.
Your market anarchism is just coercion of different variety.
Also:
Ten year olds are not psychologically or morally capable of making informed rational decisions. There may be some ten year olds that can but 16-18 is the best median value which to separate adults from children legally.
August 8, 2009 at 1:43 am
“No one that I know agreed voluntarily to obey the diktats of any state, they are forced to by the threat of violence.”
Which is only applicable if we were to accept that voluntarism is the only justfication for coercion. I know some propertarians who would object to that. Not to mention some natural rights theorists, utilitarians, and every other system of thought outside voluntaryism.
June 4, 2010 at 7:39 am
Dear The Converted,
I just have a quick question for you but couldn’t find an email so had to resort to this. I am a progressive blogger. Please email me back at barbaraobrien@maacenter.org when you get a chance. Thanks.
Barbara
June 9, 2010 at 7:34 pm
This is less a case of ownership and more of a case of child welfare. The child can’t legally make their own decisions, and due to their impressionable nature sees nothing wrong with the poor decision of the parent. All the court REALLY decided was that Reckless Endangerment issues (and by extension, the child’s right to health and welfare) trumps a parent’s right to indoctrinate their child with whatever nonsensical gobbledygook until the child is old enough to start thinking critically.
July 30, 2013 at 2:28 pm
It was a professional and depth research report on China Wind Bearing industry. I grew up in a parsonage, a fundamentalist Christian parsonage, and I grew up with that indoctrination. “Help him,” he said in a semi-intelligible bark and nodded at the giant, who was strangling a male vampire with one hand while trying to remove the three females biting into his back with the other.
July 30, 2013 at 4:04 pm
De – Larch tried to sidestep as if his attacker were a slow moving bus he could easily dodge, but the oncoming werewolf veered to match him. Another some may be silicon nitride ceramic bearing, whose circle and rolling element is made by Si – N4 ceramics, retainer that is generated by PTFE, PEEK or PI. Due to the large number of contestants, it was necessary to conduct three matches simultaneously.
July 30, 2013 at 5:45 pm
What’s far more, the factors which are affected by the rotation speed include the bearing type, size, precision, bearing peripheral components, clearance, keep frame structure, lubrication and load. I guess that in light of everything that I had told her about him, she was just as shocked as I was. Consequently, they are often applied in the narrow area.
July 30, 2013 at 5:49 pm
He danced around the sweeping paws with a fluidity that made the other combatants in the club look like clumsy children. What’s far more, the factors which might be affected by the rotation speed include the bearing type, dimension, precision, bearing peripheral parts, clearance, keep frame structure, lubrication and load. Several well-known companies produce bearings for builders looking to buy bearings for their seismic applications.
August 5, 2013 at 3:58 pm
Argument For intervention on the side of Maximizing choice: the child’s agency is crippled by the belief (from parents) that god will hate her for having a blood infusion. Intervening to (hopefully) give the child a chance to repair her own agency and some day make more truly free choices.
The argument of “14 year old’s can make their own rational decisions” is a bit off. As for the parents making the decision… if you let them make the decision then you’re accessory to murder, no? Leaving the Doctors (people sworn to protect life) the final decision makers, and given the oath they Have to save the girl. As for the state stuff… Are they being malicious or are they just legally covering the asses of the doctors?
I’m on the side of the doctors on this one. I always thought religion was a bigger enemy to anarchy than governments any ways.
Question: does religious freedom in Canada give us the option to commit suicide legally? If my religion said I had to kill myself, would I be admitted to a psych ward or what?
December 1, 2016 at 6:35 am
You say: “But so long as no one is harmed by this choice ”
Blood transfusions are necessary treatments to prevent harm, if not death. The “religious” dictates against are based on nonsense.
So, yes, the doctors and any others supporting them were right to intervene. This is definitely NOT “one of the most horrifying decisions any court has ever made.” Not even close.