Teen Jehovah’s Witness should get transfusion in labour: court
The High Court has said a 16-year-old girl who was close to giving birth should receive a blood transfusion if she needed it – despite her religious objections.
The girl, who, like her parents, is a Jehovah’s Witness, had said she did not want a transfusion under any circumstances.
However, Judge Mark Heslin supported the wish of her doctors to be able to give a transfusion in the case of an emergency.
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He said if the court did not ‘override’ her views, ‘it could result in the tragic and needless death of the minor, or her serious and irreversible injury’.
The ruling was published by the courts service yesterday, but was delivered verbally on February 13, when the girl was 37 weeks pregnant.
No further update has been given since then regarding her pregnancy or whether any treatment was required.
Pic: Shutterstock
However, in the weeks leading up to the birth of her baby, the HSE had applied to court after the teenager expressed the wish not to receive a blood transfusion, even if her life was at risk.
In a sworn statement, her treating consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist – who was not named, to protect the girl’s identity – said that even in an uncomplicated first pregnancy, a haemorrhage can occur unpredictably and progress rapidly.
‘The refusal of red blood cells [in the form of a blood transfusion] may result in a volume of blood loss that would otherwise be survivable, leading to the minor’s death,’ the doctor said.
Pic: Shutterstock
The doctor said that adolescent pregnancies were associated with a higher risk of complications such as anaemia and hypertensive disorders, and of postpartum haemorrhage.
First pregnancies also bring further risks such as a long labour or other factors that could trigger a haemorrhage. If treatment were delayed, it could result in cardiac arrest, multi-organ failure and death, the doctor warned. The doctor also said that the transfusion would only be used as a last resort when all other possible treatments were excluded.
Judge Heslin said the doctor believed that the girl did not fully understand the potential need for a blood transfusion. The doctor said the teenager’s ‘judgment is clouded by her religious beliefs, such that she is unable to truly weigh the information provided to make a valid decision’.
The girl told her court-appointed guardian that if the decision was taken out of her hands, it would be easier, but she would still feel guilty about it. She did not take the same view in relation to a transfusion for her unborn baby and was happy for her baby to receive blood if necessary.
Judge Heslin said it was plain that there were several constitutionally protected rights at play in the situation, including the right to profess religion, the right to bodily integrity, the right of equal access to necessary care, the right to life, family rights, and the rights of the child.
He noted that the child’s loving parents supported her view, but that the teenager said she had not been pressured by them.
Judge Heslin said he believed that her decision to refuse treatment could deprive her and those who love her of the future she had planned for her and her baby.
He said the court would provide consent on behalf of the minor to treatment which her parents were not in a position to give consent to. He continued: ‘Doubtless the minor’s parents love their daughter dearly and nothing in this ruling is intended to suggest otherwise.
‘One can well imagine how enormously difficult it must be for a person of faith who finds themselves unable to consent to particular treatment for their child by reasons of sincerely held religious beliefs.’
He said he believed his judgment represented the appropriate outcome of a careful balancing of various, and sometimes competing, constitutionally protected rights.
‘A refusal by this court to permit a blood transfusion in the event that one was clinically necessary as a last resort would constitute a clear failure to vindicate this minor’s right to bodily integrity and right to life,’ he said.
