Jimmy Page’s Trousers

Many of you will probably have heard of the case, before the High Court, of the Jehovah Witness who has taken action against the Coombe hospital for transfusing her, against her wishes, after she haemorrhaged dangerously during childbirth. Apparently, she lost 80% of her blood and the doctors told her that a transfusion was the only way to save her life. As she felt that to receive a transfusion would be some sort of affront to god, the doctors went ahead and did what they’re supposed to do and saved her life by transfusing her anyway.

Damn right too. I’m so completely pissed off with this pussy-footing around religion. If she’s dying and her life can be easily saved, it’s a no-brainer. The fact that her religion has cherry-picked its particular set of forbidden taboos and has decided that life-saving medical procedures are not allowed because the random page on which they opened their bible expressly mentions it shouldn’t enter into the matter.

Over at Fat Mammy Cat, she makes the argument that if it’s a reasoned, adult decision that it should be respected and likens it to a situation where, hypothetically, she herself may be told she has breast cancer and a mastectomy would be required to save her life. Is her refusal of this operation the same as the Jehovah Witness lady’s refusal of a transfusion. I say no. I don’t think that the term reasoned can be used by anyone refusing treatment for religious reasons.

Fucking religion. It just fucks up people’s lives. This woman is beside herself with guilt simply because her life was saved in a manner of which her religion disapproves. How incredibly ridiculous is that? I’m not trying to pick on what Jehovah Witnesses believe in particular - I think that all religions are ridiculous and nowhere more so than when they try to convince you that it’s better to die or fuck up your body than to disobey some divine tenet. If you want to carry the argument of religious interference with people’s heath beyond those who Witness, we could look at the practice of female circumcision and infibulation across a lot of Muslim Africa (or, many would argue, myself included, the circumcision of male infants for Judaic belief). Or the condemnation of the Catholic church in particular, and of some Islamic authorities of condom usage across AIDS-ridden countries around the world. Or Nigerian mullahs issuing a fatwa declaring polio vaccinations a plot by the US to sterilise good, god-fearing Muslims. And that’s not to mention pretty much all of the major religions telling us that masturbating would make us blind (still 20-20 despite substantial effort, by the way).

Everyone’s so worried about offending someone’s religion. Nobody wants to just tell them all (and I do mean all of them - I’m not singling out any particular religion here) to just fuck off. You’ve fucked up the lives of our species for long enough. The less daft of us have had enough. Your days are numbered but unfortunately, the number isn’t small enough for me. Do us all a favour and fuck right off.