I will never understand the Jehovah's Witness blood transfusion thing. Donating blood, giving up a part of yourself to help save someone else's life - probably someone you don't even know - how much more Christian can you get?

I don't care if people, for whatever reason, want to decline medical treatment. But is insurance going to cover his special procedure? It shouldn't.

Good God! Up until you posted this poor fuck and the tree-limbed man, I thought this sort of body-horror only occured 1980s movies involving too-much latex!
May the flying-spaghetti monster bitchslap these people with his noodly appendage.
-Woodbun

He kind of looks like snuffleupagus...

Lorax, I would be with you if it was the US. We should not concoct elaborate procedures to satisfy idiots, but in Britain everybody gets health care so whatever.

yeah i hate people who have different ideas than me. they should live the way i tell them. that would make me feel better about myself.

People are stupid.

Because of my belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which prohibits me from undergoing the same medical treatments as all you heathens, I hereby demand that every medical procedure I undergo be accompanied by a large machine that goes "Ping!", and that said machine must be the most expensive piece of equipment in the entire hospital.

@7, would it be acceptable for it to say "pong" instead.

Wow, that picture was so much worse than I thought it would be.

It's amazing that he has lived practically his whole life like that -- I wish more people showed that kind of steadfastness/dedication when it comes to the parts of Christianity I can get on board with (helping the poor, treating others as you'd want to be treated, etc.).

Unfortunately @7, you're religious codiciles can only be honored if the Administrator happens to be in the surgical theatre at the time.

And @2: the British surgeon has already stated in the article that he is doing the operation pro bono, so that removes a large part of the financial cost of the procedure.

Pah! It's nothing a slip and fall with a vat of boiling hot grease couldn't cure.

@11, or a belt sander...

Napoleon wins. Fer shooa.

Clearly an entirely different god is behind this. He looks like Cthulu.

wait, is he 14 or 51?

Remember in Mike Judge's Idiocracy, where all our smartest minds were devoted to inventing new ways to preserve the fertility of morons?

People -- read the article. The doctor is providing the surgery/treatment at no charge.

Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer.

FTW.

Once again the Righteous on the Left make judgements against another's life sytle choice they don't like. Well well well. I don't want to hear one little whine from you folks when "they" say YOUR lifestyle choices are bad, death dealing, bad for kids and horses. You're more concerned with the young man's religious belief system than respecting a life style you object to. I think Fred Phelps has an opening for you in his group.

Soon to be on a TLC (that's Ch. 38 folks) 1-hour doc-bloc. Sandwiched in between one of those obesity clinic shows and folo on those little girls with 2 heads.

@10 and 17

Yes, the surgeon is doing the procedure for free,but that doesn't mean he's also paying for the operating theater, nurses, recovery/therapy, etc. And that still doesn't mean that England's taxpayers aren't paying more than they would if this guy didn't have (what I'd call) an arbitrary boundary as to what type of treatment he'd accept. He should have to come up with the difference himself.

@19, Here is the differences between us and the right. We think he has every right to be a moron, just as we have a right to call him such. I would not force him to get treatment, or anything of the like.

However, just becasue I accord him that right does not mean I have to sit silently while people embrace stupidity. Hell the whole idea of a democracy is premised on the exact oposite. i.e. we argue, debate, and challenge view points.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for not posting the picture. That tree-man had me freaked out all day.

Sexy pics are good, though.

YES! Special points to Comte @10 for picking up the Python reference!

What happens if the procedure fails and he does start bleeding heavily? Will the doctors stop and watch him bleed to death on the surgery table?
I wish his faith also forbid aenestesia.

Why does the younger picture look so photo-shop-y? At a glance, I'd swear this was something from The Onion.

@19 It's not a matter of "railing against a lifestyle you don't like" and saying it shouldn't exist. It's about other people not bending over backwards to accommodate your lifestyle choice.

(For the record, since being gay is not a choice, nor does affording the same rights to gays as everyone else particularly inconvenience anyone, this argument doesn't work for that. Just thought I'd try to nip that in the bud).

I'm sorry. Why do we care?

Maybe one day I should let the JW's in and have them explain to me the fine differences between a complicated surgical procedure and a blood transfusion. In my eyes it's both modern man playing god to save lives.
I'll contemplate that the next time I donate blood.

Hmmm...

Around here (Toronto), if you have scheduled (non-emergency) surgery, you can donate blood for your own surgery. In that sense its not really a transfusion... just some of your own blood saved for later.

I'm guessing that isn't allowed either by JW's, or I supposed he'd have just done that....

Wow. You people have no sympathy for the poor guy? How can you be so heartless?

I have sympathy (or is it pity?) for him, but it's hard for me to work up much of a lather. He doesn't want treatment? Fine. Darwinian evolution will take place, and the human race will move forward slightly less encumbered by primeval superstition.

@31. Because at any point, in any day in the last 37 years he could have said "enough" and had it removed?

You can disagree with his medical choice and/or religious beliefs AND still have sympathy for the poor guy!

Innovation is always good, regardless of how it came about

29: Jehovah's Witnesses are perfectly OK with advanced medical procedures (it's Christian Scientists who don't like medical treatment). There's a passage somewhere in the bible that says you shouldn't "eat blood," and they interpret the word usually translated as "eat" to mean taking in blood in any way, whether by mouth or by needle. It's still weird, but it't not quite as self-contradictory as it seems. Personally, I favor the Jewish approach to weird religious restrictions: you ought to be allowed to break them if life is at stake. Lifesaving surgery? Go ahead and "eat" some blood, young man. Just feel like quaffing down a blood shake? Not so much.

I shouldn't have hit "post" before I read the whole article. He doesn't attend church, and is financially supported by his siblings because his condition prevents him from finding work. Somehow, those two facts obliterate most of the sympathy that I had for his situation.