• Your Medical Freedom—The Courts Speak!
    Awake!—1985 | September 8

    • The Jackson Case​—Mother and Daughter Are Fine

      Ernestine Jackson was about 26 weeks pregnant when labor began in February 1984. The staff at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, found that because of previous surgery and the position of the fetus she risked a ruptured uterus. They urged a cesarean delivery. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson gave permission, but they asked that no blood be given. They accepted the Christian beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses, with whom they were studying the Bible.

      The staff of the Catholic hospital advised that there was up to a 50-percent chance that Mrs. Jackson would need a blood transfusion. When she “steadfastly refused to compromise,” the hospital asked Circuit Court Judge Greenfeld to appoint a guardian authorized to permit a transfusion. After a bedside hearing, Judge Greenfeld denied the hospital’s request.

      ‘So what happened?’ you may wonder. Well, lacking permission to use blood, the doctors performed the cesarean. No blood was needed or used. Both mother and daughter survived and later went home. They are still well.

      That might seem to end the matter. But it did not. The hospital appealed, based on the question: “Did the . . . (circuit) court err in holding that a competent, pregnant adult has a paramount right to refuse consent to a blood transfusion on the basis of her religious beliefs in the circumstances presented?”

      The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland3 admitted that the issue was no longer pressing because Mrs. Jackson and her child survived the operation without the use of blood. But the Court decided to consider the appeal, since other such cases might arise.

      The Court observed that Mercy Hospital argued that it was run by a Catholic order and was “dedicated to the preservation of life.” Yet the Court said that Mercy Hospital could “not properly complain that Mrs. Jackson’s religious beliefs were upheld to the detriment of the hospital’s . . . Freedom of religion means the right to pursue one’s religious beliefs without interference from any other religion, non-religion or the government.”

      What about the State’s interest? “The State of Maryland . . . participated in this appeal by submitting a written brief as amicus curiae, and despite Mercy’s assertions to the contrary, pointed out that any State interest in the preservation of life is not necessarily absolute.” Further, the Court observed that Maryland statutory law “embodies an emphatic legislative mandate that the patient’s decision regarding the type of treatment the patient shall endure is paramount. The statute goes so far as to declare that, in the final analysis, it is the patient who determines whether there shall be any treatment at all.”

      Note the Court’s conclusion: “In his denial of Mercy’s petition for a guardian for Mrs. Jackson, Judge Greenfeld said: ‘This Court is of the opinion that a competent, pregnant adult does have the paramount right to refuse a blood transfusion in accordance with her religious beliefs, where such decision is made knowingly and voluntarily and will not endanger the delivery, survival or support of the fetus. This conclusion is consistent with a patient’s right of informed consent to medical treatment . . . and the corollary right to refuse that medical treatment.’ We agree. JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.”​—April 4, 1985.c

  • Your Medical Freedom—The Courts Speak!
    Awake!—1985 | September 8

    • c On March 27, 1985, a similar decision was reached by the Fourth District Court of Appeal of Florida.4 It affirmed that even in a life-threatening situation a transfusion could be refused by a 27-year-old man even though he contributed to the support of a minor child. It added: “Moreover blood transfusions are not without risk and we take judicial notice of the adverse consequences, perhaps abhorrent to the donee, which can arise from a transfusion of impure blood.”