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JEHOVAH’S WITNESS FORCED INTO BLOOD TRANSFUSION: Teenager says she feels raped by the system.
According to a Ottawa news source, the court concluded it was in the "best interest of the child" to go against her personal wishes, sparking an intense legal dispute over the rights of mature minors when it comes to competing interests of the state.
The unidentified Winnipeg girl, was almost 15 years old when she was taken by child welfare employees and forced to undergo a blood transfusion that the girl compared to "being raped and violated."
Legal clashes over court-ordered blood transfusions and other medical treatments have played out nationwide and the Supreme Court's judgment set guidelines on when older children are capable of making their own calls.
"It is a sliding scale of scrutiny, with the adolescent's views becoming increasingly determinative depending on his or her ability to exercise mature, independent judgment," wrote Justice Rosalie Abella in her decision.
"The more serious the nature of the decision, and the more severe its potential impact on the life or health of the child, the greater the degree of scrutiny that will be required," Abella wrote.
The girl, now over 18, is described in a court document as a top, award-winning student who is bilingual, loves to read Jane Austen and John Grisham, and suffers from Crohn's disease, a chronic, incurable disease that inflames the intestinal tract.
After she refused a transfusion because it is forbidden in her religion, her doctor informed Winnipeg Child and Family Services, who immediately apprehended her from her parents, who are also Jehovah's Witnesses
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