Most civilized civilizations have adopted a social responsibility to protect crazy people from themselves. These same civilizations also mostly have some sort of respect for freedom of religion. But what happens when these two priorities come into conflict?
What if some crazy person adopts an equally crazy religious belief that leads them to an early preventable death?
Case in point:
England
A 22 year old Jehovah Witness woman gave birth to twins and then started bleeding to death in the hospital. She refuses a blood transfusion based on her religious beliefs and now she is dead. The kids now have to be raised motherless. I’m not going to bother digging up the research, but it is pretty obvious that kids raised without mothers usually do worse off. It will be England who has to deal with the repercussions of this religious nut’s irresponsible actions and abandonment of her parental responsibilities. If she were in my hospital, she would have been forced to have the transfusion and I would have thrown in a free sterilization with it.
Screw her freedom of religion. We don’t let Rastafarians smoke pot because it is illegal. Well so is suicide.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2809423.ece
Second case in point:
India
Some how, this 18 year old Indian girl got it into her head that she was a snake goddess. Maybe she had axema? That makes your skin scaly. Anyway, as a parent I like to cultivate the sense in my girls that they can become anything they want to be. But I draw the line at snake goddess. Obviously this girl had some kind of mental problem. (Unless she really is a snake goddess?) Unfortunately her family and community were a bunch of enablers and they went along with the whole snake goddess idea. OK fine, nothing illegal there. That is their religion; let them have fun with it. But when this flake decides she wants to be buried alive, do you think anyone slapped any sense into her? Of course not! They all went along with it. Hundreds of people including reporters (Don’t you have to go to college to be a reporter?) witnessed her live burial. Thankfully some non-disbeliever policemen showed up a couple hours later and dug her out. She was alive and hysterical. Now my first instinct is to say, that the cops should not have interfered in the process of natural selection, but this woman was crazy and everyone just stood around and watched or helped her commit suicide! I’d take the whole crowd and throw them in a labour camp for 5 years and of course sterilize them all.
