I am writing this article as if I were in your shoes. Cut and paste it below the line if you want to use it. Feel free to change it or toss it in the junk yard if it is no-good! Cheers! ****************************************************************************************************** I gave blood yesterday for the first time EVER. It's "newsworthy" in my opinion in more ways than just one. I'm telling you, it was the most amazing thing in the world to do. The feelings I had were somewhat two-or-three-fold. I felt free -- free to do what I wanted and free to do the right thing by donating. I felt somewhat defiant but mostly I just felt good because somewhere, someone's life might be saved by what I did yesterday. I work in a hospital and have seen blood put to use to bring color to someone's granny's cheeks, or bring a new mom back to consciousness after nearly bleeding out from childbirth, so that she can hold her baby. To be able to give blood and give a young man with cancer a higher count, so that he can receive chemotherapy and fight is a wonderful feeling. I use the word "defiant" because at one time in my life, I did not have the freedom of giving blood. Doctrines taught to me by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, (Jehovah's Witnesses) made the privilege of giving blood an offense worthy of excommunication. Yet, at one time the Watchtower through its "Golden Age magazine spoke favorably of blood transfusions. Please consider these quotes from Watchtower literature. Blood Transfusions Spoken of Favorably
God has never published a decree which forbids employing medicine, injections and blood transfusions. It is a human invention like the Pharisee's disregard for mercy and grace. To serve Jehovah with all the mind does not mean to put our intelligence in a box. Principally because there is a human life at stake. The life being of great value is holy to Jehovah.
- Consolation 09/1945 p. 29 (Dutch ed.) - Emphasis added.
The Mending of a heart
In New York city a house wife in moving a boarder's things accidentally shot herself through the heart with his revolver. She was rushed to a hospital, her left breast was cut around, four ribs were cut away, the heart was lifted out, three stitches were taken, one of the attending physicians in the great emergency gave a quart of his blood for transfusion, and today the woman lives and smiles gaily over what happened to her in the busiest 23 minutes of her life.
- Consolation 12/25/1940 p. 19 ( http://www.ajwrb.org/watchtower/data1.shtml )
However, down through the years of one death after another the Watchtower Bible And Tract Society, has changed its policies concerning giving blood or accepting blood whether whole, part or fraction for a transfusion. Thousands of people including many children have perished and still today Jehovah's Witnesses fear expulsion if found out that they received a needed blood transfusion.
What many people do not understand is why certain ones in the congregations are treated differently concerning blood transfusions. Even one of the "elite" Jehovah's Witnesses known as one of the 144,000 voluntarily received a blood transfusion and nothing was done to remove her from the congregation or shun her from partaking of the Memorial Emblems!
Here are some quotes from the 1958 Watchtower, August 1st, page 478
Questions From Readers
One of Jehovah’s witnesses who claims to be of the anointed remnant recently went to the hospital and took a blood transfusion, voluntarily. Should she be allowed to partake of the emblems of bread and wine at Memorial time?—R. J., United States.
We, of course, regret with you that this sister who professes to be one of the anointed remnant took a blood transfusion voluntarily during her stay in the hospital. We believe that she did the wrong thing contrary to the will of God.
The Watchtower article also said, quote:
The only thing that can be done in the cases of individuals like this is to view them as immature and therefore not capable of taking on certain responsibilities, hence refusing to make certain assignments of service to such ones.
As an anointed member of Christ’s body she is under orders and command by Christ Jesus to partake. Whether she is unfaithful as to what she professes to be by virtue of taking the emblems of the Lord’s Evening Meal is something for Jehovah God to determine himself. unquote.
If the judgement that Jehovah's Witnesses faced by accepting a blood transfusion or giving blood for a transfusion was only being judged as immature, then there would certainly be thousands of more Jehovah's Witness members giving blood or receiving a transfusion if needed. The Watchtower letter below shows that if a person receives a blood transfusion and does not "repent" for this action, then they have, by their actions, removed themselves from the congregation. So, in-other-words, a Jehovah's Witness has judged, prosecuted, and condemned him or herself for violating Watchtower blood policies.
(Watchtower letter here: http://www.ajwrb.org/basics/wtletter6-16-00.jpg This is why I feel so free and happy because I no longer will allow the Watchtower or any other organization to bind my mind, heart, or conscience as to doing something I personally know is right! It has been discussed that many Jehovah's Witnesses who are in need of a blood transfusion leave to another city to receive it, so that other members of their congregation will not ease-drop or spy on them and report the news back to congregation elders. But I don't have to worry about those issues anymore, because I am free of the cult and free to do what is right in God's eyes as well as my own. After all, what greater thing could I do than to give someone else the gift of life. Isn't that what Jesus has done for all of us? Merfi
