Please Share/Post Copies..... Tries to keep JW Girl from dying

Winnipeg Free Press
Friday, September 8, 2006
Page: A8
Section: City
Byline: Carol Sanders

A Calgary man whose daughter died after being convinced by her religion not to accept a blood transfusion hopes a Winnipeg court will do all it can to protect a girl fighting "the gift of life" that her Jehovah's Witness faith says is wrong.

"I hope the judge does the right thing and lets the child live and receive medical treatment," said Lawrence Hughes, whose daughter Bethany died at the age of 17 four years ago this week.

"When the child has become an adult, hopefully then she will be able to make a decision free from institutional coercion," said Hughes. When his daughter was diagnosed with leukemia, he tried to convince her to accept blood transfusions. Hughes was shunned by the Jehovah's Witnesses, including his daughter.

"She was under tremendous pressure," said Hughes. "They're required once a year to sign a blood card printed by the Watchtower Society and to sign it in the presence of two elders, otherwise they're disfellowshipped, or shunned by congregation," said Hughes.

A spokesman for a Winnipeg Jehovah's Witnesses congregation declined to comment on any of their beliefs while there is a case before the courts.

"They live a very cloistered life," he said. "They're not allowed to associate with non-Jehovah's Witnesses outside of work. They have five meetings a week and when they're not at a meeting, they're studying for a meeting, or they're preaching once a week."

The former Jehovah's Witness recalled the day Bethany heard her devastating diagnosis.

"We were in the hospital sitting and reading scriptures from the Bible trying to strengthen her faith," he said. Witnesses believe that blood transfusion is forbidden for them by Biblical passages such as: "Only flesh with its soul -- its blood -- you must not eat" (Genesis 9:3-4); "(You must) pour its blood out and cover it with dust" (Leviticus 17:13-14); and "Abstain from ... fornication and from what is strangled and from blood" (Acts 15:19-21).

"I thought about who wrote it, when it was written and why it was written and I said to Bethany 'none of these pertain to your situation. If you take a transfusion, there's a good chance of living. If you refuse, there's a good chance you will die.' From that moment on, she shunned me. She said I was an apostate."

Alberta child welfare authorities got a court order and Bethany received treatments, he said. When they were finished, Bethany and her mother disappeared, he said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

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