I'd been doing some thinking a bit about the old organ-transplant ban, lately, and something occurred to me...
Despite what some may feel, I think it's pretty obvious that the GB's decisions are dictated by pragmatic, real-world circumstances for more than any other factor. A while back someone here (can't remember who) suggested that transplants might have been re-labeled a "conscience matter" because a GB member or his relative urgently needed one at the time, and for some reason, this idea stuck in my head.
It’s been a fairly well-documented fact that there were a small number of JWs who had died because they dutifully obeyed the transplant ban prior to its lifting in 1980. Not many, mind you; the reason being is that historically, far fewer individuals have needed transplants compared to those who have needed transfusions (emergency or otherwise).
As few and far between as those instances were, there had to have been at least some blowback in the years following that re-label; America is, after all, a pretty litigious society compared to the rest of the world (no offense). XJWs know more than most, however, that lawsuits end with settlements far more often than they do with verdicts; it saves time, legal fees, but more importantly, it minimizes bad PR for higher-profile plaintiffs.
How much of a stretch is it to suggest that - at the time - the WTS' lawyers pragmatically advised the GB to discretely settle out-of-court with any of those possible litigants; particularly specifying confidentiality clauses?
The matter would have been small enough - at the time - to be successfully swept under the rug.
Information gathered from insiders suggest that there’d been a small reformist element in the Legal Dept. who wanted to affect progressive change in the WTS’s policy regarding blood (at least until Jaracz’s iron-fisted reign). I can’t help but wonder if the transplant policy adjustment functioned (either intentionally or otherwise) as a beta-test to see if re-labeling transfusions a "conscience matter" was feasible.
The WTS have always been meticulous record-keepers, so they must have been aware of how many JWs had lost their lives to the transfusion ban; a number that - even back then - had to have grown into the thousands (as opposed to the transplant-ban casualty numbers). If such an attempt at reforming that policy did indeed exist that far back, the Legal Dept. would definitely have watched closely the outcome of the transplant policy adjustment, because the number of transplant-refusal-related deaths vs. the number of related lawsuits would have given the Legal Dept. an idea of how many related lawsuits would occur if the transfusion policy were given a similar overhaul.
Even back then, they would have to have been blind to not see that – Americans being as litigious as they are (once again, no offense) - the WTS would likely have been swamped with an absolute shitload of wrongful death lawsuits after the fact; so much so, in fact, that the WTS – being fundamentally authoritarian in nature- would have felt (correctly or otherwise) that their very survival was being threatened.
By that logic, keeping the blood transfusion proscription active was – from their point of view - their only choice (please bear in mind, I’m not –repeat – not defending such a decision; merely theorizing as to why it went the way it did).
More importantly, an internal procedural precedent would have become anchored in the foundation stones of the Tower’s Legal Dept.; that of a policy of paying out-of-court settlements (billeted with gag orders) to placate - and, more importantly, silence - angry legal opponents who might otherwise tarnish the WTS’s public image far more effectively than XJW assembly picketers or obscure hard-to-find “apostate” anti-WT books.
Fast-forward to the 90s and Barb Anderson’s discoveries.
Barb and her colleagues’ hard-fought campaign to reform one of the WTS’s other controversial policies had finally led to some progress; an apparently greater willingness to address alleged and/or confessed sexual abuse with more than just a 1950s-style conservative mentality.
It soon became apparent, however, that this had opened up – in Barb’s words – Pandora’s Box.
By officially greenlighting previously silenced victims to come forward – supposedly without threat of congregation censure – it was becoming increasingly obvious that this was a problem more on a scale of the transfusion ban (and, more importantly, its body count) than the old organ transplant matter. Assuming any theoretical transplant-related litigation ever occurred, however, the WTS`s legal response policy would have unfortunately already been in effect.
Unfortunately, the GB of the 70s (who would have signed off on any such policy) were dead or retired, and their successors may not have fully grasped the significance of the policy`s origins. It would simply have been WTS policy, and since there is every indication that that GB2.0 are full-on True Believers (TM), it would have been viewed as God`s policy; therefore, their default response could only have been to follow that policy.
And that is, in fact, precisely what their response to the pedophila problem has been; settling out-of-court with a gag order. Again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
They’ve locked themselves into a cycle that I don’t think they really know how to get out of.
The game-changer has, of course, been Candace Conti and her family and legal team; they have consistently and bravely demanded accountability and transparency over a gag-ordered settlement throughout the entire affair, and more importantly, because Candace herself was never baptized and has not been an active JW for years, she and her family don’t fear WTS sanction like so many of the other silenced victims and their families.
Additionally, because the particulars of the case don’t seem to have any degree of ambiguity, there’s virtually no wiggle room for the WTS’s Legal Dept.; all they can do is implement increasingly desperate-looking stalling measures in the hopes that a break comes their way.
Which, of course, is highly unlikely at this point.
Now, I realize that this hypothetical connective thread probably won’t significantly impact most XJWs’ feelings or views on the matter, but for me, understanding how and why something happened has always helped me to personally make better sense of it, and writing it down helps clarify it even further in the dark, convoluted recesses of my peculiar noggin.
Hopefully (assuming I’m correct, and not talking out of my ass yet again), sharing that clarity might help others make some sense of “what went wrong” and how things got to where they are now.
Thanks for reading.