Boy who refused treatment on religious grounds dies

This is just a sad story.

A few hours after a judge ruled that a 14-year-old Jehovah's Witness sick with leukemia had the right to refuse a blood transfusion that might have helped him, the boy died, a newspaper reported.

Dennis Lindberg died from leukemia. Doctors gave him a 70% of surviving another 5 years with the help of transfusions. His aunt who is also his legal guardian is a Jehovah's Witness and raised him as one too. The judge ruled not to force him to accept the transfusion.

"I don't believe Dennis' decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision," the judge said during the hearing.

"I don't think Dennis is trying to commit suicide. This isn't something Dennis just came upon, and he believes with the transfusion he would be unclean and unworthy."

He may have understood the consequences of his actions and he may not have been directly coerced. He just made a deadly decision based on ideas that were planted in his head by his aunt and their religion. He refused a routine life saving procedure based on groundless garbage. And this was the result. He was stripped of critical reasoning abilities at an early age that otherwise would have prompted him to accept the transfusion to greatly improve his chance of survival.

Jump.