Thanks all, for acknowledging my posts and keeping this thread above ground. I feel that these two letters of the WT have a wealth of information that needs to be disclosed.
When reading the WT blood brochure, I have always asked myself the question, who is supposed to pay for all the very expensive costs for specialized non-blood treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses? Also, over the years, I realized that JWs are always afraid to obtain necessary medical treatment because of the blood ban and as a result many have neglected caring for their own health and some have prematurely died because of it.
The first paragraph of the 2006 letter states:
Jehovah has richly blessed the efforts of his people to help the medical and legal communities understand the religious position that we take on blood transfusions. As a result, it is now much easier to receive respectful, competent medical treatment. This has greatly relieved the anxieties that often accompany our endeavors to maintain Christian integrity and “abstain from blood”
Has Jehovah, through the self-proclaimed governing body spokesman really greatly relieved the anxieties of their flock’s apprehensions of medical treatment? This five page complicated letter lays a great burden on all Jehovah’s Witnesses. The headquarters have walled themselves off from the issue. They have passed it on the HLC who in turn are authorized to pass it on the elders, who lay it on some poor woman in labor whose joy of having a child is washed away and replaced by fear and torture of having to face the blood issue.
My next point: Who pays? The Watchtower? No!
Point 8, page for says: Treating the pediatric population without blood presents many challenges for the medical profession….. and I am sure one of the many challenges is WHO PAYS? The first quote above, says Jehovah has richly blessed the efforts of his people. He sure has not done it by opening up his wallet.
And point 10, asks, Could my financial circumstances or health insurance plan restrict treatment options? So now they discuss expensive insurance policies for non-blood medical treatment. Who pays? Why , here again, the lowly publisher at the scraping at the bottom of labor barrel.
In doing research on these matters, I have located an article that says it a lot better than I can. I wanted to put it in a new thread, but I believe it needs to be placed along side the Society letters on blood. I have quoted excerpts from it, the reference for the entire article is at the bottom.
My Conscience, Your Money.
by Stephen G. Post , Leonard Fleck
In refusing blood this Jehovah's Witness asserted a right against interference. This is a "negative" right because it does not create any correlative duty for nonbelievers to provide resources. The negative right to be left alone contrasts with the "positive" right to requisite resources. No ordinary managed care system or publicly funded health care program has an obligation to pay for costly medical interventions that result from religious belief systems. Instead, those with expensive beliefs should take financial responsibility for them, forming their separate managed care organizations. […….
….]The hospital should only have provided the relatively inexpensive artificial blood products that have in part emerged in response to the special needs of Witnesses. However, highly expensive drugs and ICU care should have been paid for by the Jehovah's Witness community, which created this extreme cost by virtue of its beliefs.
Any hospital or managed care system should inform the Witness community, through its well-organized hospital liaison committees and local leadership, that just as no individual or institution can be obligated to accept their idiosyncratic beliefs, there is no obligation to subsidize the consequences of said beliefs. Only if the Witness community commits to paying the bill in total should the hospital treat to the fullest.[…
…]Nevertheless, in a just health care system, believers who reject the wider society's accepted standards of medical futility, definitions of death, and blood use have no claim on nonbelievers for a financial blank check. The individual or sect holding an expensive belief must pay for it. Otherwise, the wider society is held hostage to any and all creeds'[….
….]to say that this is a matter for Jehovah's Witnesses to solve for themselves. They can simply create their own specialized insurance company, in effect, selling a rider to normal insurance policies. I really have no idea what the price of such a rider might have to be, but it might be $100 per year. For individuals of average means such a price might seem too hig[….
….[If health reform in the future does not include mandated insurance for all, and we continue our current practices with respect to the foolish or improvident, then what moral principle would justify distinguishing Jehovah's Witness patients (and their needs for life-saving care) from foolish uninsured drivers in accidents? And if hospitals have only very limited budgets for charity care, then should Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood for religious reasons have higher or lower priority for charity budget dollars compared to the foolish uninsured young?]….
Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com
Publication Information: Article Title: My Conscience, Your Money. Contributors: Leonard Fleck - author, Stephen G. Post - author. Journal Title: The Hastings Center Report. Volume: 25. Issue: 5. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 28+. COPYRIGHT 1995 Hastings Center; COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5002240125
belbab
