Irish Hospital Says No Right To Reject Transfusion On Religious Grounds

In Dublin, Ireland, Coombe Women's Hospital is claiming in a court suit that a woman's freedom of conscience and free exercise of religion are not a basis for the woman to decline appropriate medical treatment. Last September, the hospital convinced an Irish court to issue an emergency order permitting it to give a life-saving blood transfusion to a Jehovah's Witness who had lost blood in childbirth. Now, according to yesterday's RTE News, the Attorney General has been brought in as a defendant in the case. The Hospital claims that it had a duty to protect and safeguard the woman's right to life, and was obliged to protect the family life of the woman and her child and to protect the rights of her child to be nurtured and reared by his mother. The mother, identified only as Ms K, says the transfusion infringed her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights to refuse medical treatment.