UNBORN JEHOVAH’S TWINS TO GET BLOOD scream the headlines from this mornings Daily (Irish) Mail referring to a story of human interest that has gripped the nation over the last few days. Doctors attending a 32 week pregnant mother went to the High Court to get legal clearance to give a blood transfusion to the twins after delivery, when the woman ,a Jehovah’s Witness, objected to the procedure on religious grounds. The mother wrote to the judge pleading for her wishes in this matter to be respected… “I am of sound mind and I was born and raised in Ireland…We love our children with all our hearts and we have a healthy four-year-old. We don’t want our children to die or cause them any harm…But I have had firm belief for 20 years,and my husband for 15, as a Jehovah Witness…We do understand that the doctors feel they have no choice but for blood products in this situation, all we ask is for a bloodless alternative to be tried first.”
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have many doctrines and practises peculiar to their denomination but none more controversial and high-profiled than the prohibition on blood transfusions based primarily on a verse in Acts 15:20..."Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood." Many Witnesses all over the world have stood by their conviction based on this Scripture even to the point death. In 2007 in England , Emma Gough, 22 a young mother died hours after giving birth to twins because her faith prohibited a life-saving blood transfusion. She was able to hold her son and daughter after the natural delivery, but suffered a sudden hemorrhage and lost a great deal of blood. As a Jehovah's Witness, Mrs Gough had signed a form before the birth insisting that she should not be given blood. So does the Bible proscribe the use of blood transfusions as the Witnesses believe and are we to admire their steadfast conviction as a matter of obedience to Gods word or see it as a blind adherence to a tradition that does not originate with the Creator?
There are two issues at stake here, what the Jehovah Witnesses teach about blood transfusions and what the Bible has to say on the subject. Firstly the Witnesses position is a bit more complex than it might appear as there is not a total prohibition on all blood products. While separate components of plasma are allowed, plasma itself is forbidden the reasoning being that as these factions pass through the placental barrier during pregnancy and God allows these blood components to pass from mother to child, it is logical to conclude that God wouldn't break his own law. This might seem reasonable were it not for the fact that medical science has shown that practically all blood components pass through the placental barrier. So even though the Witnesses believe that the Bible has a total ban on blood they only promote a partial ban.
Which brings us to the crux of the matter, what does the Bible actually say on the subject of blood transfusions? Not surprisingly the Bible has nothing to say on this medical procedure as it was unknown in Biblical times ! Even by the Witnesses own admission whenever the Scriptures speak of a ban on blood it is in the context of consuming it as a food.. “Each time the prohibition of blood is mentioned in the Scriptures it is in connection with taking it as food, and so it is as a nutrient that we are concerned with in its being forbidden. (The Watchtower 9/15/58, p. 575...The official magazine of Witnesses) What a tragedy for all concerned when the plain meaning of the Bible is wrenched out of context and imposed in a misleading way into a restriction that can have such tragic and devastating results.
There is no doubting the sincerity and conviction of the parents at the centre of the present case, but I would call into question those who lead the Witnesses and formulate their doctrines. It seems to me that any Bible teacher worth his salt could not stand by and witness the needless deaths of two infants on the basis of a glaring misinterpretation of what the bible plainly says. There is already much dissent on this issue globally by members of the Witnesses , one such group The "Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood" [AJWRB] describes themselves as
"a diverse group of Witnesses from many countries, including elders and other organization officials, Hospital Liaison Committee members, Doctors, and members of the general public who have volunteered their time and energies in an effort to bring about an end to a tragic and misguided policy that has claimed thousands of lives, many of them children. promoting change within the WTS on the topic of blood transfusions."
Hopefully in the Irish situation some good men and true from within the ranks of the Jehovah’s Witnesses may step forward and speak up. Such a move would inspire some hope in the future of that movement where dissent is allowed and individual conscience under God is respected and tolerated. I recall the Lord Jesus admonishing the Pharisees of his day for their mind-numbing allegiance to the letter of the law while killing the spirit of it with their rituals and traditions. Indeed on the subject of the Sabbath He had to remind them of the Divine order of Gods Laws…The Law was made for man not the other way round ! (Mark2:27)
Gerard O'Shea
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3 comments:
WATCHTOWER HEMOPHILIAC HYPOCRISY
Jehovah's Witnesses may take certain components of blood, such as hemophiliac preparations (Factor VIII and Factor IX),and have for many years.The greatest risk of AIDS infection comes from this procedure which is allowed by the Watchtower society,so this proves that this whole entire blood ban thing is totally made up and man made and NOT from the Bible.
Starting in 1945, the WatchTower Society has since refused to permit Jehovah's Witnesses to accept blood transfusions. Misinterpreting the Old Testament prohibition against eating animal blood as a routine food item, the WatchTower Society began teaching in 1945 that receiving a blood transfusion was "eating human blood". Jehovah's Witnesses believe that receiving an infusion of human blood into their body's circulatory system is scientifically the exact same thing as eating or ingesting blood into their body's digestive system.
"A patient in the hospital maybe fed through the mouth, through the nose, or through the veins. When sugar solutions are given intravenously it is called intravenous feeding. So the hospital's own terminology recognizes as feeding the process of putting nutrition into one's system via the veins. Hence the attendant administering the transfusion is feeding the patient through the veins, and the patient receiving it is eating through his veins." -- The WATCHTOWER magazine, July 1, 1951.
Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that when human blood is transfused into their body's circulatory system that the transfused human blood remains to be human blood and continues to function as human blood. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that if blood is eaten, then the ingested blood enters the body's digestive system, where the blood would be treated by the body exactly the same as it would treat a hotdog, a potato chip, or any other food item. Ingested blood would be completely digested and broken down into proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and waste; which are then either assimilated or excreted by the body.
The WatchTower Society uses scriptures which speak about the blood of slaughtered animals to teach Jehovah's Witnesses that blood is "sacred" because blood is the "symbol of life". Then, the WatchTower Society turns around and requires Jehovah's Witnesses to sacrifice their own "life" to maintain the alleged "sacredness" of a "symbol" of the very thing they are sacrificing -- their life. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that the WatchTower doctrine on blood moronically places a higher value on the SYMBOL than it does on the THING SYMBOLIZED.
In fact, the Old Testament scriptures permitted the eating of unbled animal meat, which the Bible equates as eating animal blood directly. In isolated occasions, when humans needed to eat unbled meat in order to sustain their own human life, the Mosaic Law permitted such, but then required the eaters to fulfill the requirements of being "unclean" for a few days. Thus, the Bible recognized that the sustaining of human life was more "sacred" than maintaining the sacredness of animal blood. To do otherwise would be doing exactly what the moronic WatchTower Society does. It would make the SYMBOL more SACRED than the THING SYMBOLIZED.
In fact, the WatchTower Society is leading Jehovah's Witnesses to disobey GOD and violate the Holy Scriptures in one of the most serious ways possible. Because humans were created in GOD's image, GOD considers human life sacred. A Jehovah's Witness who sacrifices their SACRED LIFE in order to maintain the sacredness of a SYMBOL of that SACRED LIFE varies little from those who profane life by committing suicide. Those Jehovah's Witness Elders who teach and police this moronic doctrine vary little from common accessories to murder. The Bible is fairly clear in how GOD views murder, and how He deals with murderers.
This moronic twisting of scripture would be laughable if not for the fact that it has lead to the pointless deaths of numerous Jehovah's Witnesses in the past, and it will continue to lead to the pointless deaths of many more Jehovah's Witnesses in the future.
It's a bloody mess
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