Dear Mr. Jensen,
I was delighted to read your well reasoned letters last night regarding the WTS’s blood policy. You have obviously given much thought to this subject. I am writing to let you know that you are not alone in being frustrated and disillusioned by the blood policy.
What may have started out years ago as simply a mistake in theology has become a stubbornly held doctrine that needlessly kills hundreds each year. My first rude awakening to the error connected to the blood doctrine was when I was explaining it years ago to a few physicians. I mentioned “eating blood,” referring to transfusion and one of them immediately spoke up and said that a transfusion was NOT “eating” blood. The Society has also learned that lesson because they long ago stopped using the two terms synonymously.
Please be assured that you are not alone. I was baptized before 1950; served in various capacities including elder and assembly speaker for over twenty years before becoming disillusioned and personally running headlong into the blood policy. My story follows; I hope it gives you some comfort knowing that many of us have gone where you too have been:
Blood Saved My Life
A few years ago, I faced severe illness. It was a slowly progressive illness. As death neared, I was told that an organ transplant could be potentially life saving. Before an organ became available, I became extremely ill, at which time I was placed in an ICU and was told that I needed FFP (fresh frozen plasma). My red cell count was down too, but the immediate problem was that my blood would not clot. I was literally bleeding internally (plasma was oozing out of my blood vessels into the surrounding tissue resulting in great swelling of my body). My body could no longer make the clotting factors or other proteins needed.
An HLC member had told me that administration of albumin was "OK" to help correct the protein problem. I had been getting large doses of albumin for days before I was admitted to the ICU. Still I got worse. The same HLC person then told me in ICU that I could not take the FFP because it was not on the Societies permitted list. He said that factor VIII was OK (it is available separately from FFP). The doctors had told me that getting factor VIII was not enough. There were a number of other components in FFP that I also needed.
The principle ICU physician (intensivist) arranged (with my approval) to meet at my bedside with the HLC person to discuss the matter of my treatment. The HLC person again stated that any clotting factor was OK as long as it was administered separately from the FFP (I was puzzled that he had a little grin on his face as he made that statement). The physician explained that many components of FFP were not available separately. The HLC person readily admitted that that was the case. The meeting concluded as I indicated that I understood the Society’s position as stated by this HLC person. He seemed to be under the impression that I would be going along with his recommendation that I refuse the FFP. Actually, I felt confused, bewildered, scared, somewhat desperate, but most of all embarrassed that the JWs with whom I had willingly identified myself seemed so unreasonable, silly and down right ignorant, to say nothing about their arrogance.
A little later that evening the physician returned to ask me what I thought of our discussion with the HLC elder. I admitted to him that I was confused by the seeming inconsistency of the HLC’s "reasoning." Only after I indicated to him that the HLC elder's points seemed hollow and contradictory did this doctor say in effect that his remarks were the worst case of double talk that he had ever heard. We agreed that if all of the FFP components were OK separately, it made no sense to prohibit them together (I thanked Jehovah that as sick as I was on that day, I still had enough mental capacity to recognize such double-talk).
I gave permission for the FFP and it was administered that same night out of sight of the elders at the suggestion of this caring doctor (he referred to the HLC elder as the "Gestapo").
I began to improve almost immediately after receiving the FFP. A few days later, an organ became available and I survived the transplant operation. I am again able to make my own clotting factors and other blood components.
Had I chosen to stick to the Societies position (that was my intention until I heard the double talk), I would have died within a matter of days or weeks. As it is I have had many years of additional life.
Sam Beli
I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted. Solomon
