Why is everyone criticising the JW's and not even slightly the media?

Question

What happened is sad, I don't agree with the circumstances but it was not my life.

The whole would she of survived is media speculation, not that of doctors.

Why does the media get to say what it wants about people, and is instantly lapped up?

Note: I am not a JW, but I think the media has handled this badly and done them a disservice in this case.

Is the Sun newspaper a new religion?

Answer 1

Death is unnatural, and saddens every reasonable person. It seems crass, however, to turn a tragic death into a platform for one's opinionated rantings.


This tragedy occurred more than two weeks ago, on October 25, 2007. Despite what pro-blood activists and anti-Witness critics might pretend, her doctors informed the family that Mrs. Gough would have died even if she had received blood transfusions.

That's little consolation, but it is unsurprising.

During a hemorrhagic event, artificial expanders almost always work better than blood itself at keeping veins and arteries from collapsing. In addition, targeted treatment of specific blood fractions is considered preferable to old-fashioned "throw everything at it and see what sticks" thinking of whole blood transfusions. Of course, Jehovah's Witnesses generally accept artificial products and fractions derived from plasma, platelets, and red/white cells.

Since Jehovah's Witnesses only refuse whole blood and its four major components, doctors still have many many proven products and techniques. In fact, many or most doctors have come to prefer these products and techniques for ALL their patients.


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!

As God's spokesman and as Head of the Christian congregation, Jesus Christ made certain that the early congregation reiterated, recorded, and communicated renewed Christian restrictions against the misuse of blood.

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.

As Christians, they are 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 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 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/index.htm?article=article_07.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/vcnb/article_01.htm

Answer 2

When A cult religion requires an innocent young mother give up her life because a Publishing Company disguised as a religion says so, the Media should expose this fraud.

Answer 3

In my home country the same thing happened, a young mother from a neighbouring country came with her baby girl, the girl had cancer and needed surgery. The doctors in her country refused to operate without blood.

Our doctors agreed to do so, though. The headlines practically screamed at you, accusing her of not loving her child. (But why would she travel all the way to a strange country if she did not love her baby???)

Anyway, after the SUCCESSFUL BLOODLESS operation, the newspapers went silent- I only saw ONE ARTICLE that told the story. So the media can mislead people too.

Did the doctors say that she would've lived with a transfusion? No. They cannot say for sure if her condition was that serious.

Answer 4

If the Sun newspaper were a new religion I'd become a Page 3 evangelist.

Answer 5

I agree the Media sucks however, as poster above stated, as a mother you have a responsibility to your children... a responsibility she clearly did not even try to meet when she could have (tried).

Unless handled very very carefully, those children are going to grow up and HATE religion.

Answer 6

The death of this 22 year old mother of new born twins is tragic and nothing short of. JWs believe that the bible forbids blood transfusions.
Any death of this nature makes sensational headlines and that is what the Sun Newspaper has hit upon. This woman's death was preventable, easily preventable and should NEVER have happened in the 21st Century. But this woman's faith forbade it and as a consequence these two children will grow up never knowing their mother. How can that be right in the name of the christian god.
I thank the Goddess that I am a Pagan and that I don't have endure such rediculous laws.

Answer 7

Well said.

I also think that the Yahoo Answers members who have used her death as an excuse for Jehovah's Witness-bashing ought to be ashamed of themselves since it is in poor taste and wholly unchristian.

Answer 8

because the media loves to trump religion and spit in its face. all for the sake of making rivalries.


try and think "tommorow never dies"

Answer 9

when someone died in a war cause G. Bush and "Christianity" promoted a war is Ok but if someone died obeying a bible principle is critiziced.

how many soldiers have been killed in the war for nothing and nobody critiziced so much, as JWs are critiziced how many JWS soldiers had kill or be killed in that war (none).

Answer 10

Do you know the odds of her surviving or not. I know that there are two children out there, that a mother didn't give them a CHANCE of having a mother to guide them through their lives.