A Greater Good?

Last week I read Ian McEwen's latest novel, The Children Act. McEwen is a deft writer and in this book he explores the role of society in both protecting the vulnerable and ensuring the greater good.  The story focuses on a court case in which a family of Jehovah's Witnesses wants the right of choice for the seventeen-year-old son to refuse a blood transfusion. The young man has leukaemia and without the transfusion he will die. The story is told from the perspective of the judge who must rule in this complicated case. There are issues of religious freedom and the grey area of the son's age. He does not want the transfusion but is still a minor, by a few months. I won't spoil the story by spilling the beans on the outcome, which is not predictable.

In the same week we heard about an aboriginal family which refused chemotherapy for an eleven-year-old daughter, Jada, insisting that they would follow traditional ways rather than introduce poison to the child's body. Doctors were convinced that the therapy would likely save the girl's life, but the family said no, then disappeared, probably to the States. There is a religious or spiritual element to this story as well.

When does the state have the right to make these decisions? And what happens when individuals or families insist that saying no to treatment is a freedom based on religion? I think that there are times when the best interests of the person, particularly children, trumps religion, if it means saving a life.

What do you think?

Take a look at my latest Groundling blog entry on the city of Detroit
http://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.ca/2014/10/a-new-green-detroit.html