In the health care world there are many factors like religion that play a role in the type of care a patient receives. In class we were given a story about how an eight year old boy died from refusing a blood transfusion because he was a Jehovah's witness. In our Clinical Ethics book we had to read a case in Delaware about how a three year old boys Christian Scientist parents refused chemotherapy for the boy. In the story about the boy, he was sick with leukemia and had a seventy percent survival rate of the next five years if he accepted the blood transfusion. Also, they boys legal guardian was his aunt who was a Jehovah's witness. This is what caused a controversy because the boys original parents said that the boy had been wrongly influenced by the aunt and should receive the transplant. To me this raises a couple of concerns; why was the boy in the custody of the aunt in the first place? Does this mean that there was already family issues beside this? Do they let the boy make such a big decision? When we were first talking about this in class my first opinion was they shouldn't let the boy make such a big decision on his own being so young and on the basis of being a Jehovah's witness. But after a woman made a comment about the boys quality of life not being well from the leukemia, that maybe he did not want to live his life being hospitalized and sick all the time made my opinion really torn about this issue. I mean if I was a eight years old and I did not have a hopeful future I would not want to spend my life in a hospital all the time but then again your still alive and you still have your family and friends also that chance maybe one day you will be better. The Clinical Ethics case was about a three year old boy who had been suffering from Burkitt's lymphoma and had a forty percent chance of success with his chemotherapy treatments. The Supreme Court permitted the Christian Scientists parents to refuse the boys chemotherapy since the boys chances of success of the treatment was too low to force him into the medical treatment. These two stories are similar because the religion of the people involved affects the treatment the person is receiving. Also, within these two cases the patient is still a child and the main question is should the child be able to make their own choices to their treatment or is wrong for the parents religion to affect a child's treatment because of the parents religion choice. With the case that happened in Delaware I feel the Supreme Court made the correct decision in letting the parents decide because I also agree it would not be fair to put the child through the chemotherapy if the chance of success is not that good. If they did interject to make the boy get the chemo it would ruin his quality of life for the rest of his remaining time and that would not be right that the court took that away from him. These two cases are similar in the accepts of religion effecting the type of treatment the patient is receiving. But there are also many other factors that make them very different so it is not always easy to figure out what is the correct ethical decision. These types of situations are difficult for healthcare providers and will always be difficult because they are such controversial issues.