It is a given, that most Jehovahs Witnesses would believe that giving a blood transfusion to a dying child would be against the law of God....This we already know..What I want to know is: do you have the moral right to make that decision for someone else?
2007-07-09 12:02:03 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Back in the late 60's and early 70's I worked as an ambulance driver and attendant. I had a patient who was an 8 year old girl that fell through a plate glass picture window. Because we were nearby when the call came in, we arrived very quickly and found her bleeding from three arterial (spurting) wounds. It was the first and second time I actually used a tourniquet, one on an arm and one on a leg. The most serious incision was to a femoral artery, right in her crotch where it was impossible to position a third tourniquet. I tried to clamp the artery with a hemostat but found it had retracted into the wound and I couldn't find it because of all the blood. My senior partner decided we should haul-*** for the hospital. I did my best with direct pressure while we flew across town. The local police knew our situation and road-blocked all the intersections between us and the hospital with squad cars. The ER staff knew we were coming and had a surgeon waiting as we burst into the hospital. The third bleeder was finally clamped after the surgeon cut away the excess tissue and exposed the artery. A saline drip was started and the girl was typed and cross-matched for four pints of blood, hung and waiting for parental permission.
Then the child's parents arrived. The father flew into a rage at the sight of the blood bags and could not understand that no blood had yet been administered. He punched-out the surgeon who had just saved his daughter's life and started throwing the units of blood on the floor and stomping on them. The floor of the treatment room was wickedly slippery with blood while two police officers, myself, and my partner wrestled the father to the floor and put him in handcuffs. For a Christian, he had a surprisingly foul mouth. We threw him in the back of a squad car and left him there to cool off.
Meanwhile, the ER doctor and the surgeon were still working to save the little girl. They pumped normal saline into her in a desperate attempt to keep her blood volume up. It was decided that we needed a court-order to over-ride her parent's decision to refuse treatment. A squad car was dispatched to the judge's office but found he had already left for home. The cop chased the judge down and sped him back to his office for the proper paper work. There was a delay because (at the time) it took two judge's signatures to over-ride a parent's refusal. The cop raced across town to the second judge's residence and the instant he had the second signature radioed the hospital.
It was too late. The little girl had already bled to death. Everyone in the ER was seething with anger. The death was entirely unnecessary. An 8 year old child had been allowed to die for the sake of her parent's ignorant religious superstitions. It was a lucky thing that the JW father was safely confined to the back of the squad car because every man in the ER, especially those with children, wanted to beat the living crap out of him!
It took many years for me to get over my anger to the point where I could actually say, "Jehovah's Witness" without preceeding it with a foul curse. Did the parents have the moral right to let their beautiful innocent young daughter die a needless death for the sake of their own asinine religious superstitions? I didn't think so then and I don't think so now. Unfortunately, the law is still on their side.
2007-07-09 13:16:28 · answer #1 · answered by Diogenes 7 · 8⤊ 4⤋
Diogenes - A very touching story.
This has happened many times over - I know a man, when he was a young man, whose father, who had disassociated his self from the JWs (1977), okay-ed blood to save his life.
Saves lives, bottom line, Saves lives. < period there. Is this not what a Christian does?
Jesus gave His life - His body and His blood so that we may live.
Is it not right to emulate Christ's example and give of our body? a kidney a heart, any part that imparts life??
Is it not right to follow Christ's example and give our very blood as He did - to give life to others??
Fact - God through Paul and the Holy Spirit teach on more than one level.
For example: When Cain slew Abel:
10 And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.
11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
12 When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth."
13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Did the blood really call?
Does Paul mean eat blood in a Pagan ritual or use blood to save life?
It will be an "unbearable" punishment for the WTBS who dictate the withholding of a life giving substance. This is the taking of a life.
_____________________________________...
Pride.. pride.. pride keeps them from changing stance except for incrementally starting with "components".
I do see pride and arrogance among the JWs. This is hidden and smug but among their own quite open.
Pride is a the first listed deadly sin.
2007-07-10 09:10:09 · answer #2 · answered by ander 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋
It really angers and saddens me as a parent when adults do things to harm innocent, helpless children!
What's especially egregious is that in order to make sure that this asinine policy is enforced, JWs are actually teaching their members that blood transfusions are very dangerous and that the majority of the recipients die from them. If they believe this in addition to the nonsense about it being against God's law, this keeps them from making an emotional decision under pressure.
Just a note for former members: As a measure of safety, make sure that any "No Blood" cards that you had are destroyed. Also, it would be a good idea to have a living will in place which designates your wishes in the event of an emergency, so that if you are incapacitated, your JW family can't force any medical personnel to withhold blood.
2007-07-09 14:56:10 · answer #3 · answered by Esmerelda 2 · 5⤊ 3⤋
The parents in Jonestown forced 276 children to drink poison because they too believed it was in their best interests.
130 Jehovah's Witnesses children die every year worldwide due to Blood transfusion ban.
1) JW's use many parts aka 'fractions' aka components of blood,so if it's 'sacred' to God why the hypocritical contradiction flip-flop?
2) They USE blood collections that are donated by Red cross and others but don't donate back,more hypocrisy.
3) The Watchtower promotes and praises bloodless elective surgeries,this is a great advancement indeed.BUT it's no good to me if I am bleeding to death from a car crash and lose half my blood volume and need EMERGENCY blood transfusion.
(Some educational links provided below:)
http://www.ajwrb.org/ Jehovah Witness blood policy reform site
http://www.towertotruth.net/Articles/blood_transfusions.htm Will you die for a lie?
(Jehovah's Witnesses do use many products that are derived from blood banks (so called blood 'fractions') but they themselves won't donate a drop)
The Watchtower is a truly Orwellian world.
2007-07-09 12:48:26 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 6⤊ 4⤋
I read the previous and agree completely....when I was a kid I over heard the adults talking about this woman who had died after child birth because she refused a blood transfusion, leaving a new born and 4 or 5 other kids without their mother and a husband who could not or would not force her to accept the blood transfusion.
God gave us the medical knowledge and ability to do this, if he did not want it done he would have made it that it could not be done.....
Failure to provide medical care is not a religious principal it is depraved indifference that can lead to murder....
2007-07-09 13:30:22 · answer #5 · answered by coffee_pot12 7 · 7⤊ 4⤋
No you dont have that right in my opinion. If a jw or anyone refused medical treament for a child of there own over some silly religious nonsense that child should be taken from them and put into a loving home where the parents would take care of them.
Some people go to far with this religious nonsense.
2007-07-09 12:07:56 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 8⤊ 4⤋
It would seem that when parents give clear evidence of studiously working to protect and prolong their child's life and best interests, the parents should be given the deference and respect befitting any other serious family decision.
Ironically, the fact remains undisputed that many MULTIPLES more have died as a direct or indirect result of a blood transfusion than have died from a conscientious decision to pursue other medical treatments.
Fair-minded healthcare experts admit that the medical technologies exist to treat literally every illness and injury without resorting to the old-fashioned infusion of whole blood, plasma, platelets, or red/white blood cells. Perhaps pro-blood activists (and/or anti-Witness critics) ignore the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses accept all minor blood fractions, so if there is some targeted need then a Witness will accept a targeted treatment (the only objections are to those four components which approximate actual blood).
It is not Jehovah's Witnesses who decide that blood is sacred; it is Almighty God who declares it so, as the Divine Author of the Holy Bible!
Jehovah's Witnesses are not anti-medicine or anti-technology, and they do not have superstitious ideas about some immortal "soul" literally encapsulated in blood. Instead, as Christians, the Witnesses seek to obey the very plain language of the bible regarding blood.
Jesus Christ, as God's spokesman and as Head of the Christian congregation, made certain that the early congregation reiterated, recorded, and communicated renewed Christian restrictions against the misuse of blood (it would hardly have been necessary to remind Christians to abstain from murderous bloodguilt).
It would seem that all conscientious Christians would feel bound by the bible's words in "the Apostolic Decree". Ironically, this decree was the first official decision communicated to the various congregations by the twelve faithful apostles (and a handful of other "older men" which the apostles had chosen to add to the first century Christian governing body in Jerusalem). God and Christ apparently felt (and feel) that respect for blood is quite important.
Here is what the "Apostolic Decree" said, which few self-described Christians obey or even respect:
(Acts 15:20) Write them [the various Christian congregations] to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled [the meat of which would contain blood] and from blood.
(Acts 15:28-29) For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, 29 to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled [the meat of which would contain blood] and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper.
Quite explicitly, the Apostolic Decree plainly forbids the misuse of blood by Christians (despite the fact that nearly every other provision of former Jewish Mosaic Law was recognized as unnecessary). It seems odd therefore, that literally one Christian religion continues to teach that humans must not use blood for any purpose other than honoring Almighty God.
A better question would ask: How can other self-described Christian religions justify the fact that they don't even care if their adherents drink blood and eat blood products?
Jehovah's Witnesses recognize the repeated bible teaching that blood is specially "owned" by God, and must not be used for any human purpose. Witnesses do not have any superstitious aversion to testing or respectfully handling blood, and Witnesses believe these Scriptures apply to blood and the four primary components which approximate "blood". An individual Jehovah's Witness is likely to accept a targeted treatment for a targeted need, including a treatment which includes a minor fraction derived from plasma, platelets, and/or red/white blood cells.
Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/hb/
http://watchtower.org/library/vcnb/article_01.htm
2007-07-09 19:02:57 · answer #7 · answered by achtung_heiss 7 · 2⤊ 5⤋
hey, if they want their kids to die...well...let them then.
just remind them when theyre crying that they (the parents) allowed the childs death to happen.
it sounds like a horrible thing to do...but if thats the only way people are willing to learn...well....
putting your beleif of "space jesus" before the health an well being of your child(ren) is equally if not more horrible.
so maybe in the end everything works out.
2007-07-09 12:07:28 · answer #8 · answered by johnny.zondo 6 · 5⤊ 3⤋
I don't think they do have the right.
Besides, most hospitals will not allow them to refuse it.
They have to do everything they can to help them.
2007-07-09 12:07:30 · answer #9 · answered by Al Shaitan 3 · 10⤊ 2⤋
Danny's information is what you need to read.
Diogenes' experience is one we all need to remember.
This is why I now give blood at every opportunity!
2007-07-09 13:42:21 · answer #10 · answered by Suzanne 5 · 4⤊ 4⤋