In any nation there is always going to be a tug of war between what you feel you have the right to do and what “society” [in the form of the government, the court, the law] thinks you ought not have the right to do. And every now and again it becomes the stuff of headlines.
Here the conflict is “inspired” by true events: telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/0 … ct-speaks/
Think about it. You sincerely believe that in the eyes of the Lord choosing to have a blood transfusion is to thwart God’s will. And though this refusal may result in your death, that too is no less God’s will.
What ought the state – the courts – to do?
To do in grappling with that huge gap between those who believe something absolutely and those who recognize that when others believe just the opposite absolutely, there can only be laws that somehow try to deal with this for all practical purposes. And here there is sometimes room for “moderation, negotiation and compromise” and other times considerably less so.
In this case the patient in need of the transfusion is almost 18 years old. So is he mature enough – adult enough – to make his own case? At least to the extent that anyone raised in a fiercely devout religious family is able to think it through thoroughly? Had he been 18 – legally an adult – there would be no court hearing at all.
One of those films in which there is [at times] an engrossing back and forth exploration into the “issue at hand”. And then a tumble [stumble] into the personal life of the protagonist. Should the boy be permitted to refuse the transfusion and/or will the judge’s marriage be saved? Sometimes they are skillfully intertwined in the plot, and sometimes they aren’t.
In other words, an “intelligent and thought provoking” film intertwined in melodramatic soap opera fare.
And then the tangled conundrums embedded in medicine confronting conflicting goods. To abort or not to abort? To separate or not to separate conjoined babies? The "for all practical purposes’ relationship between law and morality. Tangled further still in God and religion.
Also, let’s not talk about the ending.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children_Act_(film
trailer: youtu.be/BqGpq_Agv_I
The Children Act [2017]
Directed by Richard Eyre
[b]Fiona [a judge addressing the court]: If the twins remain joined, both babies will die. If the hospital is granted permission to separate them, Luke will die instantly, while Michael is likely to develop into a normal healthy child. The logic of the lesser evil is clear, one child flourishing better than two dead. But if the doctors invade Luke’s body and sever his aorta, with the inevitable consequence of his death, why is that not murder? The loving parents of these twins refuse to sanction such an act of premeditated killing. God has given life, they have argued in this court, and only God can take it away. It has been difficult, under such pressure of time and intense public interest, to arrive at settled legal principle, but the obvious. This court is a court of law, not of morals.
…
Reporter: Do you think the verdict was right? Can you tell us how you’re feeling?
Mother: Today the court has granted the hospital a licence to murder one of our children. Mrs Justice Maye has taken a scalpel to the heart of reason and justice.[/b]
So, you tell me?
Jack [Fiona’s husband, a professor, addressing his class]: I will leave you with Flaubert’s celebrated observation regarding Lucretius. “With the gods gone and Christ not yet come, there was a unique moment, from Cicero to Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone.” So, there you have it. Before Christianity began to close the Western mind, what was briefly possible then was ‘the fixity of a pensive gaze’.
God in court, God in the classroom.
[b]Jack [to Fiona after she cancels – yet again – their weekend plans]: Um… look… I don’t know how to say this, um, but here it is. I think…I think I wanna have an affair.
Fiona: What?
Jack: Yeah, I’m going to, um… I mean, you shouldn’t be surprised by this.
Fiona: Oh, really?
Jack: Yeah. Fi… when was the last time that we made love?
Fiona: No idea.
Jack: No, you wouldn’t. You once told me that couples in long marriages often ended up like siblings. Well, here we are. I love you, but…
Fiona: You’re serious about this?
Jack: Mm-hm.
…
Jack: 11 months.
Fiona: What?
Jack: You said you had no idea when we last made love, so I’ll tell you. 11 months. It’s been 11 months. Almost to the day. I marked it in my diary. Special event.
…
Fiona: This is so unfair. I have had the conjoined twins case…
Jack: Yes, I know, and before them the Orthodox Jewish schoolgirls, and before them the bad father from Bahrain, and before him the baby in the phone box…
Fiona: Are you already having this affair? If you are, I’d like you to pack a bag now and leave.
Jack: I told you that I’m not…Don’t you miss it, Fi? Or is just 'cause you don’t want it, I can’t have it? Is that the deal? You have to understand that it’s not just about the sex. It’s…We don’t even kiss any more. Barely a peck on the cheek.[/b]
So, you tell me.
[b]Nigel [Fiona’s legal clerk on the phone]: A call from the out-of-hours Urgent Business Associate on behalf of counsel representing a hospital in Wandsworth. They urgently need to give blood to a cancer patient. It’s a boy of 17. Now, he and his parents are refusing.
Fiona:Why are they refusing?
Nigel: They’re Jehovah’s Witnesses. The hospital is seeking an order to proceed against their wishes.
Fiona: How long have we got?
Nigel: Perhaps four days.
Fiona: List it for hearing at short notice the day after tomorrow. Give notice to the respondents. Direct the hospital to inform the parents. They’ll have liberty to apply for legal aid. The boy will need legal representation. I want the hospital to serve evidence by four tomorrow with a witness statement from the treating oncologist. I’ll need to know why transfusion is necessary. And the parents should use their best endeavours to file evidence by noon on Thursday. OK, thanks. Bye.
…
Minister: Why is blood so important to God? Why is God so insistent? Yes, Sarah?
Sarah [a child]: Because that’s where the soul is, right in the blood, and therefore it belongs to him.
Minister: Very good indeed. The soul, the life, it’s in the blood, and it’s not ours, it’s God’s. Now let us pray for our dear friend, Adam Henry, and a prayer of faith will make the sick one well and Jehovah will raise him up.
…
Nigel: The boy has a form of leukaemia…
Fiona: The boy, the boy. Let’s at least give him a name.
Nigel: Of course, My Lady. Adam. Adam Henry. An only child. Very devout. Awfully precocious, they say. His parents are Kevin and Naomi, also very devout.
…
Attorney: My Lady, I believe all parties accept that Adam has leukaemia. The hospital wishes to treat him with four drugs, a universally recognised therapy, as I can show. Two of these drugs have the side effect of attacking the bone marrow, compromising the body’s immune system, therefore it’s standard to transfuse during treatment. However, the boy and his parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses and it’s contrary to their faith to accept blood products into their system. This apart, Adam and his parents agree to any treatment the hospital can offer.
…
Attorney: Professor Carter, bring us up to date on Adam’s condition.
Professor: It’s not good, he’s weak, and, as I would expect, he’s beginning to show the first signs of breathlessness. His haemoglobin counts are dropping steadily. The norm is 12.5. This morning it was 4.5. And the white cell count? Well, they should be somewhere between 5 and 9. He was showing 1.7. As for the platelets…
Fiona: Remind me of their function.
Professor: They’re necessary for clotting, My Lady. The norm is 250. Adam’s count this morning was 34. A healthy adolescent produces 500 billion blood cells every day. Adam is producing no blood at all.
Attorney: And if you could transfuse this patient…?
Professor: Then he would stand a decent chance.
Attorney: Have you discussed with Adam what will happen to him if he’s not transfused?
Professor: Well, I’ve spared him the details. He knows he could die.
Attorney: What knowledge does he have of the manner of his death?
Professor: Nothing at all.
Attorney: Then perhaps you could tell us?
Professor: It’ll be very distressing for everyone, including the medical team. They simply can’t understand why they should risk losing this patient. He’ll fight to breathe and he’s bound to lose. It’ll be frightening, like drowning. Before that, there will be internal bleeding perhaps, perhaps renal failure. Some patients lose their sight. He may have a stroke. Patients vary. The one sure thing is that it will be a horrible death.
…
Attorney [for Adam and his parents]: Do you agree, Professor, that the freedom of choice in medical treatment is a fundamental human right?
Professor: In adults, yes, I agree.
Attorney: Adam is very close to being an adult.
Prtofessor: If his 18th birthday were tomorrow morning, he wouldn’t legally be an adult this afternoon.
Attorney: I think we can agree that Adam is very nearly an adult, and isn’t it the case that he’s expressed his views to you intelligently?
Professor: His views are his parents’ views. His objections to blood transfusion are the doctrines of a religious cult for which he’s likely to become a pointless martyr.
Attorney: I assume you’re a Christian?
Professor: I am an Anglican.
Attorney: Is the Church of England a cult? Are you aware that the World Health Organization estimates that up to 20% of new AIDS cases are caused by blood transfusions? And transfusion brings other dangers. Hepatitis, Lyme disease, malaria, syphilis, Chagas’ disease, graft-versus-host disease, transfusion-related lung disease, variant CJD.
Professor: Very rarely happens and never under me.
Attorney: So if we added up all the dangers, wouldn’t you say there was enough to give a rational person pause?
Professor: The blood products we use are tested to the highest standard.
Attorney: But it wouldn’t be unreasonable, surely, given all the potential for infection and error, for a patient to insist his consent be sought.
Professor: You’re playing with words. If I’m not allowed to transfuse this boy, we may lose him.
Attorney: Jehovah’s Witnesses patients are often treated now by what’s called bloodless surgery.
Professor: Look, we’re not dealing with surgery here. This boy needs blood because his treatment prevents him making any of his own. It’s as simple as that.
…
Attorney [for Adam]: Can you tell the court why you and your wife and Adam are refusing a blood transfusion?
Kevin [Adam’s father]: What you have to understand is that blood, it’s the essence of what it means to be human. It’s the gift of life that we should all be grateful for. Just as life is sacred, so’s blood.
Attorney: So why would Adam refuse such a gift from the doctors?
Kevin: Mixing your own blood with the blood of an animal or another person is pollution, it’s contamination. It’s a rejection of God’s gift. That’s why he specifically forbids it in Genesis and Leviticus and Acts. And our son, Adam, he knows that God’s word has to be obeyed.
Attorney: Do you and your wife love your son, Mr Henry?
Kevin: Yes, we love him.
Attorney: And if refusing a blood transfusion… should cause his death?
Kevin: Then he’d take his place in the kingdom of heaven on earth that’s to come.
…
Attorney [for the hospital]: Mr Henry, these books of the Bible you mentioned. At the time of these Iron Age texts, transfusion didn’t exist. How on earth could it be forbidden?
Kevin: It existed in the mind of God.
Attorney: Many Jehovah’s Witnesses accept blood products without compromising their faith. Isn’t it the case that there are other options open to young Adam and you could, if you wanted, play your part in persuading him to take them and save his life?
Kevin: I don’t know anyone who departs from the teachings of the Governing Body. The elders give us good guidance.
Attorney: The same strict elders who’ve been visiting your son every day to make sure he doesn’t change his mind?
Kevin: These are kind and decent men. The other churches have priests in the hospital too.
Attorney: It’s true, isn’t it, that if Adam agreed to a transfusion, he’d be what you call dis-fellowshipped, cast out of the community?
Kevin: Disassociated, actually, but it’s not gonna happen because he isn’t gonna change his mind.
Attorney: He’s in your care and it’s your mind I want to change. He’s scared of being shunned. Isn’t that the term you use? The only world he knows would turn its back on him for preferring life to a terrible death. Does that sound like a free choice?
Kevin [to the judge]: My Lady, if you spent just five minutes with him, then you’d understand that this is a very, very special person who knows his own mind.
Attorney: Mr Henry, have you told Adam that if he saved his own life and agreed to a transfusion, you’d still love him?
Kevin: We’ve told him we love him.
Attorney: Is that all?
Kevin: It’s enough.
Attorney: When were the Jehovah’s Witnesses commanded to refuse blood transfusions?
Kevin: It’s in Genesis. It dates from the creation.
Attorney: It dates from 1945, doesn’t it? A committee in Brooklyn has decided your son’s fate. Kevin: There are deep truths that weren’t previously understood. The same is just as true in science.
Attorney: Not much room for dissent in your church, is there?
Kevin: You’ve probably no idea what it means to submit to a higher authority. We do so of our own free will.
Attorney: When you were Adam’s age, you wouldn’t have known your own mind would you?
Kevin: He’s lived his whole life in the truth. I didn’t have that privilege.
Attorney: You say life is precious. Other people’s lives or just your own?
Kevin: All life is a gift of the Lord and his to take away.
Attorney: Easy to say, Mr Henry, when it’s not your life.
Kevin: Harder to say when it’s your own son.
…
Attorney: Is masturbation a sin?
Kevin: Yes.
Attorney: And abortion? Homosexuality?
Kevin: Yes.
Attorney: Is this what Adam’s been taught to believe?
Kevin: That is what he knows to be true.
…
Mrs Greene [reading Adams own words to the court]: I’m my own man. I’m separate from my parents. Whatever their ideas are, I’m deciding for myself. I’m prepared to die.
Fiona: Thank you , Mrs Greene.
…
Fiona [to the courtroom]: Given the unique circumstances of this case, I have decided I would like to hear from Adam himself. I need to know if he understands his situation and what he confronts should I rule against the hospital. I’ll go now to Adam’s bedside in the company of his guardian. I’ll give judgement in open court when I return.
…
Adam: So you’ve come to change my mind. Straighten me out.
Fiona: No, Adam. I need to know what’s best for you.
Adam: Please, miss, set me on the path of righteousness.
Fiona: I have to be sure you know what you’re doing. Leukaemia’s a very serious illness. Refusing a blood transfusion when it could save your life, some people think you’ve been unduly influenced by your parents and the elders, and others think that you’re awfully clever and we should just let you get on with it. Should we? Let you do yourself in? Somehow I’ve got to decide.
Adam: I think it’s my choice.
Fiona: I’m afraid the law doesn’t agree.
…
Fiona: Let’s just consider the practicalities. With a transfusion, the consultant could add two drugs to your treatment and you’d stand a good chance of a pretty quick recovery. Without a transfusion, you could die. You understand that?
Adam: Yeah.
Fiona: But how about this, Adam? Partial recovery. You could lose your sight, suffer brain damage. Your kidneys could go. Is that going to please God?
Adam: If you don’t believe in God, you’ve no right talking about what does or doesn’t please him.
Fiona: I haven’t said I don’t believe. I need to know you’ve thought this through. Blind or mentally disabled, or both. For the rest of your life. Ready for that?
Adam: I’d hate it. I’d hate it. But I’d accept it.
…
Fiona: Tell me this, Adam. I want to hear it in your own words. Why won’t you have a blood transfusion?
Adam: 'Cause it’s wrong. God has told us that it’s wrong.
Fiona: Why is it wrong?
Adam: Why is anything wrong, My Lady? We just know it. Murder, torture, lying, being unfaithful in your marriage. How do we just know it? It’s in our hearts. God has put it there. And so… like, even if we get useful information by torturing a terrorist, we know, we just know it’s wrong.
Fiona: Is transfusion like torture?
Adam: They’re both wrong. I wish I could make you see this. Blood isn’t just a biological thing and it isn’t just a symbol. It’s life itself. It’s what we are. We’ve chosen to live in God’s truth and he’s told us not to mix our blood with other people’s. It’s a simple rule we wanna live by. We’re not inflicting it on anyone else. We just wanna live our lives in the truth as we see it. As we know it.
Fiona: Thank you, Adam. And if I decided the hospital can legally transfuse you, what would you think?
Adam: I’d think My Lady was an interfering busybody.[/b]
Here of course we can only imagine each of us ourselves confronting Adam and his point of view.
[b]Fiona [addressing the courtroom]: I am bound by the Children Act and the clear injunction of its opening lines: “The child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration.” Assuming a good recovery, this young man’s welfare is better served by his love of reading and his newly found passion for the guitar, by the exercise of his lively intelligence and by the expression of a playful, affectionate nature and by all of life and love that lie ahead of him. I find that A himself, his parents and the elders of his church have made a decision which is hostile to A’s welfare. He must be protected from his religion and from himself. In my judgement, his life is more precious than his dignity. My direction and declaration are as follows. It will be lawful for the applicant hospital to pursue such medical treatments of A as they deem necessary, including blood transfusion.
…
Adam [leaving Fiona a message on her phone]: Hi. This is Adam Henry. My Lady, I got your number. It wasn’t difficult. I’m out of hospital at last, and it’s so great to hear your calm voice. I loved it when you came and sat with me and we did the Salley Gardens. I look at that poem every day. I suppose I like being ‘young and foolish’. But if it wasn’t for you, I’d be neither. I’d be dead.
…
Fiona: You look a lot stronger. How’s it been?
Adam: Lots of rows with my parents. School’s OK, I suppose. Sometimes the idea of having a stranger’s blood inside me makes me feel sick, like… drinking someone else’s saliva.
Fiona: Come on. You’re alive.
Adam: Yeah, but I wanted…Look, I’ve so many questions. Couldn’t we go somewhere and talk?
Fiona: Adam, there’s something I want you to get very clear in your mind. For me, your case is over. I’ve got lots of new cases, babies and children, all kinds of sadness, and for you, you’ve got your life back. Everything’s ahead of you now. You’re talented. You’re going to do very well, I’m sure of that. But there’s one thing I want you to do for me. Don’t phone me again or write to me or follow me. Do you understand? [/b]
Meanwhile…
Jack: You were seen coming out of Mike Morrow’s office. Divorce? Are you serious? Without even telling me? I hope he pointed out that you might just be overreacting.
Fiona: Perhaps it’s time I started overreacting.
Jack: God. You’re the big authority on family problems, and yet when it comes to your own, you’re like a sulking child.
Fiona: You were ready to buy your pleasures with my unhappiness.
Jack: Oh, Jesus. Jesus. This is beyond self-pity. What is the point of your silence, Fiona? What is the point? Come on, wake up.
Fiona: I don’t trust you any more.
Jack: Listen, I left this marriage for two days. Two days. You left it years ago. You might just think about that while you’re away.
Then the part where they…jump the shark?
[b]Fiona: Should I be frightened? Are you really stalking me?
Adam: No, it’s nothing like that. I read your judgement. You said you wanted to save me from my religion, from myself. Well, you did. I’m saved.
Fiona: What do you want?
Adam: I’m not the person I was. When you came to see me, I really was ready to die. Amazing that someone like you could waste your time on me. I was such an idiot.
Fiona: You seemed very sincere.
Adam: Well, a sincere idiot. I felt so noble telling the doctors to leave me alone. No one could understand how profound I was. I was so pumped up. At night I used to think about this video I was gonna make on my phone, like suicide bombers do. It was gonna be on the TV news. It was gonna be on the TV news. I could make myself cry just thinking about my funeral, everyone loving me, everyone weeping. What a sacrifice he made. What an idiot.
Fiona: Where was God?
Adam: He was there, behind everything. I was obeying his word, living in the truth. But it wasn’t only about him. It was my delicious adventure, my beautiful death…
Fiona: More of an adolescent thing.
Adam: But if I hadn’t been a Witness, I would never have been in that mess.
Fiona: So now you’ve lost your faith?
Adam: No, no. Perhaps. It scares me to say it out loud, but the thing is, once you take a step back from the Witnesses, you might as well go all the way. Why replace one tooth fairy with another?
…
Adam: When I had the blood, my parents were there. I saw them hugging each other and crying, really sobbing. They’d lost the case and they’d tried so hard. But then I realised, no, no, they were crying for joy, ‘cause they’d always wanted me to live and they’d never told me. It wasn’t about God at all. I felt cheated, like I’d been really stupid. The whole thing was a fraud. And I’ve looked it up. The courts always let the hospital transfuse a minor. You knew that. You always knew what you were gonna do. They’d never let a kid die for their parents’ religion. So what were you doing at my bedside, coming bothering me and singing with me, getting under my skin, trying to get close to me, asking me questions? I didn’t ask you into my life. A rubber stamp, that’s all you needed. You can’t just send me away. I don’t care if you think you’re too grand to explain yourself, 'cause I’ve a right to know. What did you want from me? And my parents, if they loved me…
Nigel: The cab is here.
Fiona: My clerk will take you to the station and buy your ticket and put you on the train to London. To the station.
[Adam kisses her on the lips]
Adam: If you loved your son, your only son, why would you let him die?
…
Fiona [reading a note to her from Nigel]: “My Lady, I just had word the Jehovah’s Witness boy, Adam Henry, is very ill again. He’s in St David’s Hospice, refusing treatment, refusing to see his parents. They think he might not survive the night.”
…
Adam [in the hospital to Fiona]: My choice.
…
Fiona: Adam thought I could…change his life…answer all his questions. He was just a dreamer, but I…I thought I was being kind, you see. I should have…I should have… He couldn’t understand why his parents…Their only son.
Jack: What happened? What’s his name? Where is he now?
Fiona: Adam. His name is Adam. He…I heard tonight his cancer came back, his thing, and they need to transfuse him. And he’s refused. He’s 18. There’s nothing the hospital can do. He’s refused and his lungs are filling with blood and he’s dying.
Jack: He’s dying for his faith. Were you in love with him, Fiona?
Fiona: Oh, Jack. He was just a child. A boy. A lovely boy. A lovely boy. Jack, he… Such a waste.
…
Fiona [reading aloud the note from Adam]: “My Lady, you never told me what you believed in. I bet it isn’t God. But what? And me? I just don’t know any more. Sometimes, in strange moods, I think, well, I’m an adult now. This thing will come back. I just know it will. And then…I could be free.”[/b]