I’ve been having a craving to try my hand at making bread pudding. I have a recipe that calls for brandy. Not having any brandy on hand I went to the grocery store yesterday. In Washington state beer and wine are sold at grocery stores whereas hard liquor is sold at liquor stores. There wasn’t any at the store I usually do my shopping at so I went to one that I know has a much bigger selection. I thought since brandy is derived from wine that it would be in a grocery store, but no I have to do a separate trip to the liquor store. I didn’t go. Why? Because on the door of every store is a sticker that says, “must be 21″. Yes, I’m well over 21, but Sophia isn’t. I can’t just leave her in the car even if it’s “just for a second”. I don’t know if I would be allowed in with her or not, but didn’t want to make a separate trip and pull her out of the car just to find out I either need to send Kurt after work or go by myself after Kurt gets home. I just don’t feel like – gawd I’m not myself after having a kid – I don’t feel like testing the limits. Alcohol laws are so fucked up!
Today on the news they said a judge ruled that a fourteen year old Jehovah’s Witness boy with leukemia could refuse a blood transfusion that could save his life.
Mount Vernon boy dies after refusing blood transfusion
NEWS UPDATE Nov, 29, 2007
SEATTLE — A few hours after a Mount Vernon judge ruled that a 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness sick with leukemia had the right to refuse a blood transfusion, even though that refusal might kill him, the boy died in a Seattle hospital.
As Kurt pointed out while we watched the news tonight, this boy was basically granted the right to die for religious reasons, which is fine. It’s part of our freedom, but if this same boy sought to have a bottle of brandy for religious reasons, it would be denied. Much like the eighteen to twenty year olds that sign their life away to serve and protect this country, they’re old enough to die but not old enough to dull the pain. But unlike the military enlistees this fourteen year old can’t even legally have sex. If he had consensual sex with an adult that adult would be charged with statutory rape. But he can choose to opt out of medical treatment that could save his life at age fourteen.
Earlier Wednesday, Skagit County Superior Court Judge John Meyer denied a motion by the state to force the boy to have a blood transfusion. The judge said the eighth-grader knows “he’s basically giving himself a death sentence.”
Doctors diagnosed the boy with leukemia in early November and began treating him with chemotherapy at Children’s Hospital, but stopped a week ago because his blood count was too low, the Skagit Valley Herald reported. The boy refused the transfusion on religious grounds.
However, his birth parents, Lindberg Sr. and Rachel Wherry, who do not have custody and flew from Boise, Idaho, to be at the hearing, believed their son should have had the transfusion and suggested he had been unduly influenced by his legal guardian, his aunt Dianna Mincin, who is also a Jehovah’s Witness.
Mincin has declined to talk about the case.
The boy’s father told the P-I the ruling shocked him but after visiting his son later in the day Wednesday, he decided not to appeal. He said doctors told him Wednesday evening that the boy, unconscious since Tuesday, had likely suffered brain damage.
Several friends of Lindberg and of his parents attended Wednesday’s hearing, and some ran out crying when the judge announced his decision.
“Dennis does present himself as a very mature man. But he really is just a child trying to please the adults around him,” said Jan Curry, whose daughter, Morgan, is his friend.
With the transfusions and other treatment, the boy had been give a 70 percent chance of surviving the next five years, the judge said in court, based on what the boy’s doctors told him.
Still, the judge said his decision was based strictly on facts.
“I don’t believe Dennis’ decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision,” Meyer said during Wednesday’s 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.”
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