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Jehovah's Witnesses blood transfusion confusion
Simple fact-The Bible does not prohibit Blood transfusions.If you are bleeding to death it is more dangerous to refuse a blood transfusions than to take one.
Bloodless surgeries are great if they can be elective.1/3rd of all trauma deaths are from blood loss.
Jehovah's Witnesses elders will investigate and disfellowship any Jehovah Witness who takes a blood transfusion,to say the issue is a 'personal conscience matter' is subterfuge to keep the Watchtower out of lawsuits..
Jehovah's Witnesses children die every year worldwide due to blood transfusion ban.Rank & file Jehovah's Witness are indoctrinated to be scared to death of blood
FYI
1) JW's DO 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 much of my blood volume and need EMERGENCY blood transfusion.
Remember this, the Jehovah's Witnesses use thousands and thousands of pints of blood donated by others.They use 60% of the blood volume as broken down "fractions" then go on Bible thumping rants about how dangerous and sinful blood transfusions are.
( JW do allow organ transplants which has more risk than whole blood transfusions so their arguments of disease transmission is bogus)
Know this,the reason that JW refuse blood is because of their spin on the 3000 year old Biblical old testament,modern medicine will eventually make blood donations and transfusions a thing of the past.When this technology happens it won't vindicate the Jehovah's Witnesses and all the deaths that have occurred so far.
The Watchtower's rules against blood transfusions will eventually be abolished (very gradually to reduce wrongful death lawsuit liability) even now most of the blood 'components' are allowed.
They are such hypocrites!
http://www.ajwrb.org/ Jehovah Witness blood policy reform site
Will you die for a lie?
http://www.towertotruth.net/Articles/blood_transfusions.htm
Comments (15)
Why pick on this issue in particular?
Although most American Catholics ignore the edict (and so technically are not Catholics, even if they might deny it), worldwide most Catholics adhere to the Pope's "no condom" policy.
This has resulted in far more deaths than any JW blood issues: death from STDs, deaths of women during childbirth, and of course the eventual death of each person who is born.
Perhaps worse than the deaths are the births of millions of children whom the parents are incapable of nourishing properly, incapable of parenting due to their own immaturity, or simply neglect the children because they were unwanted.
Yes, plenty of healthy, well cared for children result as well; nevertheless, millions fall into the prior categories.
Just say "no" to ritual superstition of all types and think for yourself.
June 27, 2008 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's with the diary on the Testifiers?
As an atheist, all the religious engage in some kind of non-rational professings, the JW are no more or less peculiar than the rest.
What prompted the particular outrage? Is there a pending case?
June 28, 2008 4:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like you to look up the RISKS involved in blood transfusions. They would include and not be limited to allergic reaction, febrile reaction, transfusion-related acute lung injury, acute immune hemolytic reaction, delayed hemolytic reaction, graft-versus-host disease, bacteria (even contamination from skin from donor or recipient), Hepatitis B and C and other viruses, syphilis, leukemia/lymphoma, West Niles, parasites, such as babesiosis, Chagas disease, malaria, Lyme disease, and others--which can also be spread by blood product transfusions.
Why the big outrage against JWs? I believe a lot more non-JWs refuse blood transfusion than JWs (I don't have a source though but know I've read it.)
June 28, 2008 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess we googled the same site, but I thought the incidence of problems was worth noting, don't you?
June 28, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry about the formatting. It looked fine before I posted it. Would sure love a "preview" function!
June 28, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't matter. If it's a risk, don't you think it should be the recipient's choice to make?
June 29, 2008 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tonalli --
"Doesn't matter."
Really, risk factors don't matter? If I have an illness that has a 1 in 10 chance of killing me, doesn't it make a profound difference whether the remedy has a 1 in 3 chance of killing me vs a 1 in 100,000 chance of killing me?
"If it's a risk, don't you think it should be the recipient's choice to make."
You are changing the point. Nobody said anybody should be forced to take a blood transfusion against their will. The original article was decrying the JW belief system that precludes giving their children adequate medical care, and the thorough brain washing that prevents adults from making informed decisions.
June 29, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well apparently risks matter to you--not me. Do you know how many parents decide NOT to have their children immunized because they believe there is a risk for autism? And it is a totally false risk--it's been proven false, yet as a health care provider I cannot (and would not) nail them to the cross for their beliefs or choices. There is ZERO risk of immunizations causing autism but parents refuse immunization because they don't believe the statistics. So in reality there doesn't even need to BE a risk for people to provide what is proven best for their children and the children around them.
Regarding choice--it has everything to do with it. People avoid risk by avoiding blood transfusion and people ignore the risks by having a blood transfusion, because they've made a choice. People do survive without blood transfusions and on the flip side there are those that don't. We are a world of choices.
June 30, 2008 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
"..for people to provide what is proven best..."
should be
"..for people to refuse what is proven best..."
Sorry.
June 30, 2008 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
re
First of all, you CAN'T prove a negative, and secondly, there are those who disagree with your conclusion. But you seem to be missing the point, which is that no one is saying that people should be forced to have blood transfusions.
June 30, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with the poster above. Also, if you are bleeding out, and you see that you have a 1 in 280,000 chance of getting an untoward effect, you might realize that since you are in Buffalo, New York (for example) you could probably rest easy as to Chagas or Malaria and a few others on that list.
If you are bleeding out in Uganda, you would probably have a whole different view as you lie there weighing your options.
Agree also with the above poster that this isn't about forced transfusions; but when you cut & paste every possible untoward consequence of a transfusion without any view as to its likelihood it doesn't move the conversation forward IMHO.
June 29, 2008 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Statistics, statistics, statistics.
Do you know some reactions to blood transfusions don't surface for years after the fact? Do you think THOSE are recorded? Besides, JWs don't refuse because of the risks but because of their beliefs of not taking blood from the body and then putting it back in.
Cut and paste? These risks are in every med-surg book I own and I remember as a student how necessary it was to be taught the signs and symptoms of some of those risks.
I wonder what the statistic is for "human error" for blood transfusions? Anyone know?
June 30, 2008 7:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tonalli --
I give up. You are a master of argument shifting well beyond my desire to follow.
June 30, 2008 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please read my post again I think I covered most details.
If blood is bad why do JW USE 50-60% of what's in a bag of blood donated by non-JW's??
July 1, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
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.
(Bloodless surgeries are great if they can be elective.1/3rd of all trauma deaths are from blood loss.)
July 2, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
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