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| Witness Gets Bloodless Liver Transplant |
The state of Kansas violated a Jehovah's Witness' constitutional proper to exercise her religious faith when it denied her request for an out-of-state liver transplant, a state appeals court ruled.
A three-judge appeals court panel overturned a lower-court ruling and ordered the Kansas Health Policy Authority to grant Mary Stinemetz's request to undergo a Medicaid-funded liver transplant in Nebraska.
Stinemetz, 64, had refused to undergo a liver transplant in the University of Kansas Hospital for the reason that she would want a blood transfusion - one thing she couldn't accept as a Jehovah's Witness.
She mentioned Jehovah's Witnesses adhere to biblical directives to abstain from blood.
Church doctrine leaves it to the discretion of members to accept certain blood fractions and donor organs.
Stinemetz needed the state to approve a liver transplant in Nebraska, where she could undergo a bloodless process, but her request was rejected for the reason that the procedure would be done out of state.
For 20 years, the Hill City, Kan. woman has suffered from major biliary cirrhosis, a chronic disease that causes the liver to deteriorate and malfunction over
time.
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Stinemetz, who has known considering that final year she would require a new liver, isn't on a waiting list for an organ, and her eligibility for a transplant hasn't but been evaluated.
Repeated efforts to reach the Kansas Well being Policy Authority for comment on Wednesday's ruling were unsuccessful. It is not recognized regardless of whether the agency plans an appeal to a increased court.
When the Kansas Court of Appeals observed that state Medicaid guidelines didn't concentrate on Stinemetz's faith, it did note that state regulations allow for exceptions towards the basic rule barring Medicaid funding for out-of-state services.
Because the rules allow for exceptions, the state underneath the first Amendment couldn't deny Stinemetz's request unless it had a compelling reason, some thing that judges had trouble pinpointing throughout oral arguments.
The state "has failed to suggest any state interest, considerably much less a compelling interest for denying Stinemetz's request for prior authorization for the out-of-state liver transplant," Judge Thomas E. Malone wrote for the appellate court.
The court noted that price was not an issue in denying Stinemetz's claim, locating that the bloodless process costs less than one particular that demands a transfusion.
"There is no question that the (state) would authorize a bloodless liver transplant if a medical facility was readily available in Kansas to carry out the approach," Malone wrote within the 40-page opinion.
Given that the bloodless process is much less expensive, the state is "unable to argue that the agency is getting fiscally responsible as the steward of Kansas' tax dollars" by rejecting Stinemetz's request.
Stinemetz's appeal was based partly on a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court situation involving a Seventh-day Adventist who was let go from her job for the reason that she wouldn't work on Saturday, the Sabbath of her faith.
That woman was denied state unemployment added benefits when she couldn't locate a job due to her unwillingness to function on Saturdays.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Seventh-day Adventist, discovering that government necessary a compelling state interest to justify infringing on someone's perfect to freely training religion.
The Kansas Health Policy Authority, meanwhile, contended the case involving the Seventh-day Adventist did not apply any far more. The agency instead, relied on a 1990 Supreme Court case involving two workers in Oregon who had been fired for ingesting peyote for sacramental purposes and had been denied unemployment compensation.
The Supreme Court eventually upheld the denial of added benefits, ruling that the government can uniformly enforce laws that may well impinge on someone's religion as long the law doesn't concentrate on one's faith.
But the Kansas appeals court distinguished among the two scenarios, noting that the Oregon situation involved illegal activity as well as the case together with the Seventh-day Adventist connected to unemployment positive aspects.
The Supreme Court ruled inside the Oregon situation that in predicaments where the state may possess a method of exemptions in location, it ought to possess a compelling cause not to extend those exemptions in cases of religious hardship.
In the Stinemetz situation, the appeals court discovered that mainly because Kansas offered exceptions to its rules, it had to possess a compelling cause to deny her reques
Jehovah Witness Gets Bloodless Liver Transplant
Jehovah Witness Gets Bloodless Liver Transplant
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