Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Troy McCullough, Tim Davis, Jennifer Holland, Kathleen Carlson and Jenny Hykes.

It was a tense, awful situation. Nelly Vega had just given birth to her baby, and she was bleeding severely. The doctors at the Stamford Hospital in Connecticut knew a blood transfusion was the only way to save her life for herself and her new child.

In the middle of the night, doctors gave her the transfusion, and new, life-saving blood was coursing through her veins.

Almost two years later the Vega family was healthy, but the Supreme Court determined Nelly Vega’s rights were violated when she received the transfusion.

The Vegas are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Nelly Vega and her husband had signed a form refusing a blood transfusion on religious grounds.

During the crisis situation in the middle of the night, the hospital officials got an emergency order from a Stamford Superior Court judge to go ahead with the transfusion.

But according to the Supreme Court the judge was wrong to make such a decision. The hospital was not right to violate Vega’s informed choice.

We disagree with the Supreme Court decision.

Although we can appreciate Vega’s religious convictions, doctors also have strong values to save lives, values centered around the Hippocratic oath.

It comes down to a decision of whose values are preeminent.

If Nelly Vega or anyone else is opposed to receiving measures to save their life, they should not put the hospital in a situation to have to violate their own values in order not to violate others’.

If the Vegas didn’t want to have all the care a hospital will offer, they shouldn’t have asked for the care the hospital is committed to provide.