Sickle Cell Case (page 2)

Simon

And kids who have no voice of their own die because their parents belong to a religious cult?

Kids die every day because their parents believe stupid things and / or do stupid things or are just terrible parents. Unfortunately, the balance between state intervention vs parental rights when it comes to many choices isn't always clear and simple.

Shouldn't we be their voice in some way?

Just saying "something needs to be done" is easier than coming up with concrete plans of what specifically needs to be done and can be done that doesn't involve making things worse for an equal or higher number of children.

Distilled down: taking kids off parents and making them wards of the state might sound like a no-brainer but the state makes an equally terrible and neglectful parent, often more so. Statistically, children born to JW parents are probably not in the worse group to be born into.

Yes, this sounds harsh and uncaring - but it's part of the issue. How do you identify and 'save' the small number who make poor choices while retaining the rights and freedoms that are inherent in those choices being made ... without interfering with those freedoms.

I really don't know what the answer is ,maybe a petition to the UN signed by all ex-JW sites?

The UN has no interest in addressing real human issues, only in issues that suite their political agenda. Don't look to the UN to solve problems. It's a soapbox for celebrities, dictators and anti-semites and little else.

Lee Elder

There is apathy is the ex-JW community on this issue in my experience. An acceptance that the policy will never change, and that there is little to nothing that can done to help. To most of the medical community it is little more than a curiosity to be pondered. To those who see the devastation first hand, it is frustrating but they too generally feel ill equipped to alter the outcome. To counter the work the Watchtower has done in building up a market for their blood policy will require enormous amounts of time and money. Most ex JW's have neither. The children suffer and die, they have no voice, and are largely forgotten. That is the sad reality.

OrphanCrow

LeeElder: To counter the work the Watchtower has done in building up a market for their blood policy will require enormous amounts of time and money. Most ex JW's have neither. The children suffer and die, they have no voice, and are largely forgotten. That is the sad reality.

You are right, Lee. The WTS has had a huge head start in establishing a bloodless cult. Fighting against that is formidable. They have been spreading their propaganda for decades.

The enormity of infants/children being used as blood martyrs is mind boggling. Stats on dead babies due to blood refusal by the parents are unavailable. But the WTS has known all along what a hot topic it was and would be in the future - they have prepared well.

The WTS' work "behind the scenes" is staggering - the ordinary JW has no idea what the org has been up to. It was close to ten years ago that I stumbled upon the medical tome that they were distributing to doctors and hospitals back in the 70s.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4oXVPm4nrmfcGVHako0OVZuSUU/view?usp=sharing

The WTS included an essay by Jack Kevorkian in that volume : Our Unforgivable Trespass. I believe that that essay was solicited by the WTS. Kevorkian, at that time, would have had no interest in or knowledge of the JW blood doctrine, he would have had no purpose in writing it. I think he was approached to write it - in the same manner that Smiley and Dixon asked Dr. Cooley to write a report for them.

If you want to have a stomach turning few minutes...just download that book and read what Dr. Kevorkian says about JW parents sacrificing their children (of course, Kevorkian was pro-child sacrifice).

The WTS has invested a LOT of time and money in promoting "alternatives" to using blood for both adults and children. Far more has gone into the promotion of alternative medicine than has gone into explaining their wacky take on an old biblical text about not eating animal blood.

Simon

If you read articles about the various tainted blood scandals and how people's lives were ruined, you'll come away with the same "stomach turning" though. It's not a simple black and white / pro vs con issue where refusing blood (for whatever reason) is all negative which makes countering it very difficult.

And no one ever explains how they intend to remove personal choice from any situation while protecting personal freedoms.

"yay, people can refuse blood anymore! ... although the government can now force any medical procedure they want on you" <- is that what "winning" looks like?

OrphanCrow

That is exactly what the WTS has worked so very hard for - and invested lots of $$$$ doing - the right to refuse medical treatment (*note - that right became enshrined by the UN in 2000).

Which, in the WTS' case, extends beyond that - they have created (gave a disorder to) a group of people who have a rare blood disorder. That is critical to understand when looking at how this situation had developed. JWs don't have a rare blood disorder - they have been given it.

The issue on this thread, though, goes beyond that, Simon. The issue is whether or not parents can extend the right to refuse medical treatment to their children. And they can't. Not in most legal systems - most countries will not allow parents to martyr their children. Child sacrifice is seen, by civilized societies, as barbaric.

And the US Supreme Court ruled on that - way back in the 40s. But it didn't stop the WTS from continuing the practice.

OrphanCrow

Simon: If you read articles about the various tainted blood scandals and how people's lives were ruined, you'll come away with the same "stomach turning" though.

You don't need to talk to me about "stomach turning", Simon. This isn't a competition between stomach turning events. But...seeing as you want to compare....

I saw what "alternative procedures" can do to a newborn infant. My own. I saw how a "bloodless" technique can turn the stomach. My son ended up with gangrene of the bowel after he was used as a bloodless guinea pig - a side effect of having his blood put back in him through his navel...after they had drained most of his blood from his wee tiny body. Gangrene that would never have happened if my mother would have just allowed him to have his surgery the same as all other babies got.

Lee Elder

Your personal experience in this regard is quite powerful. I know that its hard for you to talk about, much less write about, so I don't want to press the issue. It might open some eyes.

OrphanCrow

Lee: Your personal experience in this regard is quite powerful. I know that its hard for you to talk about, much less write about, so I don't want to press the issue. It might open some eyes.

Thank you, Lee. You are so right. My personal experience is so relevant to this issue. And I do have a difficult time talking about it. I think it is because people question my recollection of what happened, along with questioning what I have discovered since those events took place. It was so long ago and I was so painfully young when it transpired. But...I am not young anymore. And, I am no longer that naive 16 year old child with a baby that I wanted so desperately to stay alive. And all those things seem so long ago and no longer relevant - I only remember it when situations like this arise - and when my son takes his shirt off and I see the scar on his belly.

It is hard. I only wish I could explain it all.

I remember several years ago, when I was putting the pieces of the puzzle together about that mystery of what happened to me and my baby way back in 1973, a year after the WTS targeted the Canadian medical establishment with their volume about alternative practices - I asked a friend of mine a simple question about blood transfusion and pediatric surgery - he was a medical doctor from South Africa - and he told me to quit sticking my nose into things that don't concern me. He knew of my background in the JWs and his response made me even more determined to find out what had happened to my baby way back then.

I know now. My doctor friend's response didn't stop me. I kept researching. I know now that my baby was used as a medical guinea pig.

Sickle Cell Case

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