…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.
