I'm not sure where to put this, but I figured I'd put it in the D&D because there was a possibility it would have been moved here anyways. So, I ran into one of our doctors today, and I just kind of casually asked him why he was off so early. He told me he had been called in for a trauma at 4:30 this morning. (As an aside, I live in a two of 35,000, so traumas aren't a frequent situation at 4:30 at night, and so we don't have a Radiologist at the hospital at night, rather, one on call) Being that anything in the middle of the night like that is somewhat uncommon, I asked him how bad it was. He said that a 17 year-old Amish boy had been kicked by a horse, and his liver was busted open pretty bad. He said he lost a pretty massive amount of blood internally. From his best guess, I guess, judging by the amount of blood loss, he said it happened at about 1:30 in the morning. Because of the severity of the injury, they were gonna fly him to the nearest, yet most comprehensive trauma center in the area, which is about 50 miles north, in Buffalo. Well, because of the Amish beliefs, they are pushing it just to travel by ambulance (which is probably what took the people so long to get the poor guy to the hospital in the first place). Helicopter, I guess, was out of the question. So, as we spoke, the doctor said they were still working on the kid, and probably transporting him to the hospital 50 miles away by ambulance. He didn't sound too confident that the kid would make it, though. I like to look at things from a different point of view than most people. Usually, I'm more of the optimist, by nature. In this situation, I have trouble deciding....Is this extremely courageous for these people to stick so firmly to their beliefs that they risk losing a 17 year-old, healthy male? Or does this show a complete cowardice in the total distrust of modern society? Discuss. I'm interested.
I don't know anything about Amish folk but usually way-of-life or religious beliefs are always so strong that they think everything they do in life is important to their afterlife. So if he was choppered in he might not go to heaven or might be shunned by his family..? I once saw some Amish people in a Wendy's and they left driving a mercedes benz, that's the only time I've ever seen them before, and that was in rural Indiana. So it's hard to explain what I think
Neither courage nor cowardace....just another example of people putting religion in front of reason and logic. There are many, and in every religion / denomination.
It is their religious beliefs, and the fact of extending life in the name of modern medicine advances is not a reason to cahnge their lifestyle...I am not so sure, but I feel many would agree with this. I would say neither...
Modern American society probably makes their lifestyle still feasible; kind of wonder how the Amish would fare, or change their routine, in the Third World. That having been said, I bet a lot of people on society's margins: criminals, drug addicts, are that way due to the stress of contemporary life and might benefit from the simplicity of the Amish lifestyle.
I think religion is incorrectly viewed as a foundation for moral beliefs, rather than just a conduit for communicating them to particular culture or society. The ideal of minimizing risk to your child's life should take precedent; any scripture or dogma that contradicts that is inherently suspect.
These are the implicit risks people take by adopting such a religion or belief system (hey, maybe they think that we are adopting technology and implicitly taking the risk we are going to hell or being wicked beings). While our culture generally puts life before anything else, its hard for most of us to imagine that your beliefs in a god or in your culture could be more important. My girlfriends mother is a nurse and she had a young girl patient who needed a blood transfusion to live but her family was jehovah's witnesses. They refused the blood transfusion, took the 5% risk that the girl would live and prayed. The girl died. Lasty, I think what people are completely ignoring is the direct cause of the death. The horse was the murderer and was the direct cause of the death. If we banned the use of horses, this boy would have lived. This willful blindness of us ignoring the true evil in this situation is troubling to me. Horses should be killed and destroyed because they are a danger to society. Our dependence on these wicked creatures are leading to the downfall of our society and this boy had to suffer because of it. Kill the horses, save the world.
I don't get why amish beliefs would allow an ambulance, which pretty much runs on a similar engine to a helicopter. I also don't know why amish beliefs would allow advanced science to save the boy. This will make me sound like a jackass, but his contradictory beliefs doomed the boy from the beginning, and if they used the modern hospital as the last resort, then they should've allowed the helicopter as an extension of their last resort. Otherwise, their beliefs should've left the boy with their Amish doctor.
Even though medical consent is probably more legally, morally and medically complex than this particular situation, I don't think a parent should be able to refuse treatment for their child. I don't mean they refuse treatment and then risk prosecution after the fact, I mean they shouldn't even get a medical consent form to sign; the doctor should make a diagnosis and treatment should be issued automatically. Of course, even as I type this I can think of issues like being able to get a second opinion for your child's illness, or deciding wheher or not to continue their life support, that make my idea foolish. Worst of all, it would probably discourage Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witness, Amish, et al, from taking their child to a hosptial for treatment.
This is ture. A parent can refuse treatment for a child on religious beliefs. However, if the attending physician feels that the child is endangered and at risk of adverse effect from the religious belief, the attending physcian can overrule the parent. As an example, if a Jehova's witness child is in a car accident and needs a blood transfusion. The attending physican can attempt to consent the parent; if the parent refuses, and in the attending physician's opinion, the child is in danger of losing life or limb, he/she can overrule and give the blood transfusion. This only applies to minors obviously. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule.
