Faith complicates a young mother's life-or-death decision on lung transplant
by behemot 8 Replies latest watchtower medical
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Mythbuster
Ok, I was pissed at first when I started reading this but it turns out good.
Fellow Witnesses continued to visit and urged her to stay strong, assuring her that just as soldiers die on the battlefield to defend their country, sometimes Jehovah's Witnesses die to protect the integrity of God's law. Lorenzo barred the Witnesses from the house, told the children they could no longer be part of the congregation and threatened that if Perez continued to refuse the transfusion, their marriage of 19 years would be over.
Perez feared less for her eternal life than that God would punish her by taking her life if she went ahead with the transplant. "I was worried God wouldn't let me live after the operation," she said. Three days later, Perez told Lorenzo she'd changed her mind.
"I began to think how much I loved my children, these marvelous gifts from God," she explained, gulping for air as tears rolled down her face. "God loves. He does not demand that we follow rules. The rules are ours." Her heart told her that God wanted her to choose life.
Perez no longer talks to Jehovah's Witnesses, nor they to her. It is hard, she said. They are like her family. But the religion "disfellowships," or excommunicates, members who disobey its teachings. Contacted by a reporter and asked about Perez, a member of her congregation said, "She is not a Jehovah's Witness," and hung up. -
Mythbuster
btt
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behemot
Some interesting comments on this case here:
http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2010/02/17/faith-and-the-issue-of-blood-transfusion/
and here:
http://online.worldmag.com/2010/02/17/self-imposed-martyrdom/
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moshe
I had a JW tell me the doctors were just incompetent, because they wouldn't do the operation without blood.
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chicken little
Thank you for posting this. I am so relieved that this woman changed her mind. It is true she may die under the forthcoming operation, but she is not a martyr for the Jw religion. Hopefully her children will also be kept away from the religion in the future.
How sad that her "spiritual family" turn their backs on her at such a critical time. The much used expression "what would Jesus have done?", comes to mind and there is no way he would behave the way these people do.
All the best thoughts to this lady.
Chicken little
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BluesBrother
Before she changed her mind :
"What's more important: five, six, 10 or 20 more years on Earth? Or living forever?" asked David Valdez, a Jehovah's Witness minister at the Kingdom Hall in Alexandria, where Perez worshiped. Breaking God's law on blood, Valdez explained, could condemn one to an eternity of nothingness.
Hmm. I bet the WTS are not best pleased by that quote. They like to stress personal choice, the dangers of blood and that they do not want to die but trust that the doctors will be able to find a solution..This guy is a tad too honest for WTS media releases.
Good luck to the young mum for choosing life and her family
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Gayle
At least her children will be able to see their mom fighting to live for them the best she can and hopefully as long as possible and not just willing/choosing to just die, prematurely for the sake of JWdom.
At least also, the publicity news brings to the forefront the reality of the JW religion and it ugliness to cut her off/shun at such a time in this young mom and her family.
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AndersonsInfo
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/02/witnesses_blood_and_spiritual_complications.html
Witnesses, blood and spiritual complications
By Joel P. Engardio
writer, documentary filmmakerBlood transfusions and Jehovah's Witnesses make dramatic stories. Life and death determined by religious faith was on trial last year in Canada where the Supreme Court ruled that blood can be forced on children of Jehovah's Witnesses while some "mature minors" can decide their own medical fate. Russia's high court was much less accommodating. It said the belief against blood is a danger to society that warrants a ban of the religion. In the United States, a young Jehovah's Witness mother who refused a potentially life-saving lung transplant because it would likely require a blood transfusion was front page news in the Washington Post this week.
The twist in Maribel Perez's story, featured in Wednesday's editions of The Washington Post, is that she changed her mind. She is now willing to have the operation with blood because she feared leaving her two elementary school-age children motherless. Her Jehovah's Witness congregation has reportedly shunned her.
The drama in these stories is inherent because the religious objection to blood only amplifies stakes that are high to begin with -- people sick enough to need organ transplants can still die even with the blood transfusion. So Jehovah's Witnesses are left with what appear to be impossible choices: Say no to blood and risk orphaning your children, consent to a procedure that might not work and leave family behind anyway, have a successful operation with blood but face the shame of disobeying your God and alienation from family and friends still in the faith.
Yet the issue of Jehovah's Witnesses and blood is not always that clear-cut. I made the PBS documentary KNOCKING, which featured a 23-year-old Jehovah's Witness who needed a liver transplant. Seth Thomas wanted to abide by his religious conviction that blood is sacred - a life force that Jesus shed to absolve humankind's sin - and was not to be eaten, as the Bible commanded (extended to transfusions today). So Seth refused any surgery that would require blood. But Seth still wanted to live. He thought of the girlfriend he wanted to marry and a full life ahead. Seth didn't rely on prayer alone; he also put hope in medical technology, searching for hospitals willing to give him a liver transplant without transfusing blood.
Every medical center Seth contacted in his home state of Texas turned him down, but the University of Southern California agreed to take his case (it was once said liver transplants could never be done without blood and now they are). USC has a transfusion-free surgery program that specializes in "bloodless" procedures and has been working with Jehovah's Witness patients for years to develop better medical technology in every area from knee replacements to heart surgery and organ transplants. The hospital even applies the "bloodless" techniques to the general population for cleaner, safer operations that reduce infection risk and lower cost, saving blood transfusions only for when they are absolutely necessary. That's the kind of treatment I would personally want, as someone who isn't one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Nearly 200 hospitals in the United States have some sort of "bloodless" program, and the concept is catching on. Even the U.S. military is interested. The Department of Defense is paying Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey nearly $5 million to train military doctors how to perform "bloodless" surgery.
Note "bloodless" is in quotes. Many of the technologies and medicines used to reduce or replace blood contain traces of blood in the manufacturing process. An organ transplant will always have residual blood.
My mother is one of Jehovah's Witnesses and the advance medical directive she and all Jehovah's Witnesses are asked to fill out contains a menu of choices. They can choose or decline a number of treatment options that have some sort of blood fraction but fall short of an all-out whole blood transfusion. Many Jehovah's Witnesses, like my mom, pick options tailored to their personal conscience. Some are absolutists who won't take anything linked to blood. And not all Jehovah's Witnesses will accept an organ transplant, which was not allowed until 1980. But Jehovah's Witnesses who do take transplants say their intention is to get the organ, not the residual blood that comes with it.
A doctor I interviewed for KNOCKING treats many Jehovah's Witnesses but said he sees a "logical disconnect" with the religion's stated beliefs and their nuanced approach to blood: whether it was a fraction of blood or a whole bag of transfused blood, it was still blood. I agree. However, where my mom is concerned, I like the idea that she doesn't have to follow a one-size-fits-all blood policy dictated by her religion. Still, if some nuance is allowed, I wonder why the religion bothers to adhere to a no-blood theology in the first place -- or at least make the leap that the Biblical ban on eating blood includes modern transfusions?
I suspect legal considerations weigh heavily on Jehovah's Witnesses as an organized religion. While it may have been easy to "disfellowship" or excommunicate a member for taking blood years ago, the religion today would be open to devastating lawsuits if its members were forced to make certain medical decisions. High-ranking Jehovah's Witnesses I interviewed for KNOCKING said no one is excommunicated now for taking blood, but a member who willfully chooses blood has voluntarily chosen to leave the faith. Which raises another nuance in the policy: Witness officials I interviewed said a member who takes a blood transfusion while in an "emotional state and under pressure" deserves "pastoral care and compassion." They can remain a Witness as long as they don't advocate that blood transfusions are good, that they would do it again and others should do it, too.
I can't help but think about the young Jehovah's Witness mother featured on the front page of the Washington Post. Whether through a hospital pioneering new technology or the increasingly nuanced approach Jehovah's Witnesses take to blood, perhaps there is a way she can get her lung transplant while keeping her faith after all.
Joel P. Engardio directed the award-winning PBS documentary KNOCKING about Jehovah's Witnesses. His essays have been broadcast on NPR and appeared in USA Today.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/02/witnesses_blood_and_spiritual_complications.html