from the Daily Mail accessed on 7/02/2009
Susan Blackmore, in today's Comment is Free, gives a rounded examination of her objections to imposed prayer, and the problem of the proselytizing nurse. She even points out the clear scientific evidence for the harmful effects of prayer:-
In the Harvard prayer experiment, 1802 cardiac bypass patients were divided into three groups. Two were told that they might be prayed for; half were and half weren't. The third group were told they would be prayed for and they were. The first two groups recovered equally well, but the group that knew they were being prayed for actually did worse.
UPDATE
It seems this woman is in fact an evangelical christian supported by the extremist Christian Legal Centre which has been behind all the other recent law cases, most of which they have lost:-
"If they said 'please don't ask patients to pray' then I am sorry, I can't promise that, so where do we go from there? I would have to contact my lawyer."
Mrs Petrie is represented by the Christian Legal Centre, which described the hospital's climbdown as a "victory for common sense"....
She said that in 24 years of nursing that she had only been asked to pray by a patient on three occasions, but had offered to pray for people on hundreds of occasions without complaint.
She said she had only received two objections, once when she produced home-made prayer cards and this most recent incident.
How many of her patients have suffered religious abuse in silence? My grandmother would have been horrified at such behavior, but would probably have given a very robust Darwinist response!
0 comments:
Post a Comment