"That situation doesn't exist"

by cabasilas 7 Replies latest watchtower medical

• 

  cabasilas

  I remembered these words and found them in the February 22, 1976 Awake!, page 15. It's from an article entitled:

  How

  Do You Answer When Your Beliefs Are Challenged

  Background from the article:

  A modern illustration of how Christian principles can be used effectively was presented on a television program seen in many parts of Canada. A representative of Jehovah’s witnesses was questioned about some of their more controversial beliefs at Ontario’s McMaster University. The amphitheater of this modern university was filled to capacity with about 400 students. Under bright TV lighting, the moderator, a prepared panel of three students, and other students from the audience probed the Witnesses. Portions of the transcript follow.

  The Witness representative dealt with an objector on blood:

  People often question the refusal of Jehovah’s witnesses to accept blood transfusions. During the questioning, a student raised hypothetical emergency situations in an effort to bypass the Scriptural prohibition mentioned in Acts 15:20, 29.

  Student

  : "Well, suppose somebody was just coming to the hospital. They’ve got a few seconds to live. The only possible way out is a blood transfusion. Well, what’s your answer to that? I mean, that’s murder if you don’t let them accept that."

  Witness

  : "That situation doesn’t exist. Wherever there are cases where a person . . . let’s say comes in off the highway here . . . and there is extreme loss of blood. Every emergency room, in every hospital, has a plasma volume expander which can . . . "

  Student

  : "Plasma doesn’t replace blood, though."

  Witness

  : "The need there is to keep the volume up in the system. It’s not the blood so much that’s needed then, but the volume that must be replaced. These expanders will do it. They are used in emergency situations; they are recommended by Civil Defense organizations when blood is not available. Obviously it works—it has worked on thousands of Jehovah’s witnesses."

  I've known many Witnesses who think there really isn't a problem with their refusal of blood. They think the situation where someone might die in a crisis "does not exist." One reason they think this is because they've heard it from other Witnesses or from the Society itself. They think there is always some therapy or treatment which will be able to prevent a loss of life. Sometimes there is that treatment. But, sadly, sometimes there isn't.
• 

  TD

  Good find. Another instance of reckless misinformation

  Witness: "The need there is to keep the volume up in the system. It’s not the blood so much that’s needed then, but the volume that must be replaced.

  Preventing loss of blood pressure and vascular collapse is the short-term need, and primarily what paramedics concern themselves with. But since accident victims sometimes need hours of emergency surgery once they are stabilized, blood often becomes a very real need in the long term.
• 

  skyman

  Sick Sick Sick B*****D's are they not.
• 

  rebel8

  
  Wow, thanks for sharing that. It doesn't get more blatant than that!

  Student: "Plasma doesn’t replace blood, though."

  heh, I think that's a typo. I think they meant to say, "Plasma expanders don't replace blood, though."
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  Elsewhere

  According to that "witness" every JW in the world should be able to drain all of the blood out of their bodies and replace it with water. Doing that would save them all sorts of problems with blood transfusions because they could then just get WATER transfusion!
• 

  TD

  ....every JW in the world should be able to drain all of the blood out of their bodies and replace it with water

  LOL! That's pretty much what he said.

  There was a young woman in my neighborhood that collapsed on her front lawn. She had ignored the pain of an ectopic pregnancy and one of her fallopian tubes had burst.

  She was given plasma expanders by the paramedics to keep her alive in the ambulance, but once in the hospital, it took over 40 units of whole plasma and red cells to keep her alive while they operated and repaired the damage. --That's several times the entire blood volume of any human being.
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  BluesBrother

  Did anybody ask if the "Representative" had any medical background or qualifications , so as to make such a sweeping statement?
• 

  VM44

  Another example of a Witness thinking that they know something....when they really don't!