JWTruth.orgDocumented comparison resource
Search

Blood doctrine · Claim record

Wells J dismissed the Director of Child Welfare’s applications, held that blood had ‘not been demonstrated to be essential’ and ‘could be harmful’ in the circumstances, and declared the boy a mature minor whose wish for treatment without blood was to be respected; the Supreme Court of Canada later summarised the same decision, reported as Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91, and recorded that Wells J noted the treatment was less than forty per cent likely to be effective, was not ‘essential’, and was contrary to the mature adolescent’s wishes.

Claim ID claim-blood-1994-yeatts-court-findingsConcerns 19 July 1993Context
Context · 19 July 1993 Verified

Wells J dismissed the Director of Child Welfare’s applications, held that blood had ‘not been demonstrated to be essential’ and ‘could be harmful’ in the circumstances, and declared the boy a mature minor whose wish for treatment without blood was to be respected; the Supreme Court of Canada later summarised the same decision, reported as Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91, and recorded that Wells J noted the treatment was less than forty per cent likely to be effective, was not ‘essential’, and was contrary to the mature adolescent’s wishes. Awake!, 22 May 1994Supreme Court of Canada, 26 June 2009

The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation cites decisions of this kind as vindications of conscience and of children’s rights, a framing it made explicit in the companion 1995 article.

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Primary JW publication Verified

Awake!, “He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’”

22 May 1994 · pp.6-8 · pars. 29-37 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

“For the following reasons, the applications of the Director of Child Welfare are dismissed; the child is not in need of protection; the use of blood or blood products for the purposes of blood transfusion or injection have not been demonstrated to be essential, and in the particular circumstances of this case, could be harmful.”

The article prints extracts from the decision of Wells J of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland, given on Monday 19 July 1993, and states that the decision was later published in the Human Rights Law Journal of 30 September 1993. Further extracts record the judge’s findings that the boy was ‘mature beyond any normal expectation’ and that forcing treatment on him would drastically reduce his suitability for that treatment.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.

Corroborated by. src-g-1994-0522-remembered-creator, src-g94d-scc-ac-paras-62-63

Notes. The judgment is reported as Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91 (Nfld. S.C.); the Human Rights Law Journal printing cited by the magazine was not opened.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-g94d-yeatts-wells-decision

Official public record Verified

Supreme Court of Canada, “A.C. v. Manitoba (Director of Child and Family Services), 2009 SCC 30, [2009] 2 S.C.R. 181”

26 June 2009 · pp.[2009] 2 S.C.R. 181 at 221-222 · paras. 62-63 (and para. 128 per McLachlin CJ) · Abella J · Supreme Court of Canada

“In Re L.D.K. (1985), 48 R.F.L. (2d) 164 (Ont. Prov. Ct. (Fam. Div.)), for example, the patient was a 12-year-old girl suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia. … In Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91 (Nfld. S.C.), the court was faced with an application from the Director of Child Welfare to impose treatment on a 15-year-old Jehovah’s Witness who had cancer.”

The Supreme Court of Canada’s own summary of the two Canadian decisions described in the 22 May 1994 Awake!. Of Re L.D.K. the Court records that two doctors put the odds of a favourable outcome at around 30 per cent, that Main Prov. Ct. J. found ‘the emotional trauma [the child] would experience’ in forced treatment would outweigh the anticipated benefits (p. 169), and that he concluded ‘[T]his child’s life is equally in danger whichever path is taken’ (p. 170). Of Re A.Y. it records that Wells J noted the treatment was less than 40 per cent likely to be effective, was not ‘essential’, and was contrary to the mature adolescent’s wishes, so that he was not a child in need of protection. At para. 128 the Chief Justice describes the same boy as ‘a 15-year-old boy suffering from terminal cancer’.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. The official Supreme Court of Canada PDF of the judgment was downloaded from decisions.scc-csc.ca (with a Referer header, since the file otherwise returns 403), converted to text with pdftotext and read; paragraphs 62, 63 and 128 were confirmed word for word.

Corroborated by. src-g94d-kosack-judgment, src-g94d-yeatts-wells-decision

Notes. This is the best available confirmation of the citations for the Kosack and Yeatts proceedings. Neither law report was opened directly; CanLII is bot-blocked in this environment.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-g94d-scc-ac-paras-62-63

Claim page

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-blood-1994-yeatts-court-findings/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.