He died in 1978, and two years later the society changed their policy, to make it a matter of conscience in 1980.
Oooops, sorry about that chief.
Did the Watchtower Society ban Vaccinations and Organ Transplants?
by Vanderhoven7 27 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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Vanderhoven7
Thanks for all the help on this one; especially the quotations, examples and reasoning.
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Mikejw
Vanderhoven711 hours ago
An avid WTS supporter writes:
RE: VACCINATIONS: Vaccinations have never been banned. . If they were, then no representative of the WTS would have been allowed to travel overseas when vaccines were compulsory Around 1920 when vaccines was regularly in the news, there was both positive and negative information printed in the Golden Age (forerunner of the Awake) but NOT from the staff writers, but from out side sources of article by medical doctors at the time and others that responded to those articles.
RE: ORGAN TRANSPLANTS: Organ transplants were never forbidden by the Society. Like vaccinations, organ transplants have always been up to the individual.
Is he right or wrong?
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where red did this come from?
he is wrong to say its up to the individual because you would lose privileges if you dont stay fully vaccinated. So this is not up to the individual.
if you don’t follow the direction to be fully vaccinated you are going against the GB and by extension Jehovah.
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Black Sheep
From my memory, in the early sixties, even though vaccination had already been OK'd, my father wrote to Org to get permission to get us vaccinated against smallpox before we went to a JW free location where the 'need was great'.
The need wasn't great at all, but he got the OK from the bOrg and the place he went to got infected with JW doctrine. Many of the people that he convinced would be preserved through Armageddon and make it into Paradise with all of the wonderful benefits that would come with being the 'other Sheep' are already dead. So is he.
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BluesBrother
All of us in at the time believed that organ transplants were forbidden. There may not be a quote that states a d/f penalty but it was well understood. You are in no doubt with comments like this
Wt 1967 p 702/704
“. Those who submit to such operations are thus living off the flesh of another human. That is cannibalistic. However, in allowing man to eat animal flesh Jehovah God did not grant permission for humans to try to perpetuate their lives by cannibalistically taking into their bodies human flesh, whether chewed or in the form of whole organs or body parts taken from others.”
The full article, a QFR, is worth reading on Watchtower on line, if you have an interest.
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Bartolomeo
BB
There may not be a quote that states a d/f penalty but it was well understood
This is because the same story always comes out: the WT often and willingly loves to behave and pronounce itself in an ambiguous way, so that one day it can always say: "We never said it, some had understood ..."
Think about it: organ transplants, 1975, vaccinations, relationships with disfellowshipped family members, the same tactic every time
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AudeSapere
This:
In response to BlueBrother...
Bartolomeo wrote: This is because the same story always comes out: the WT often and willingly loves to behave and pronounce itself in an ambiguous way, so that one day it can always say: "We never said it, some had understood ..."
Think about it: organ transplants, 1975, vaccinations, relationships with disfellowshipped family members, the same tactic every time
For those of us that were alive and in the org at the time, it's also good to note how aggressive - or not - the org was in with regard to disfellowshipping and disassociation.
-Aude
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Mum
I remember organ transplants being banned in the '70's and compared to cannibalism.
Vaccinations were banned in the distant past (pre 1950's).
Of course, to younger or newer JW's, none of this could have ever happened.
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slimboyfat
Could that quote possibly mean that judicial committees had been taking action on organ transplants, but Watchtower were clarifying that this was not the official position? It doesn’t necessarily mean they are reversing a previous position. It could also mean that they are correctly bodies of elders who had arrived at that position themselves on the basis of statements in the Watchtower against transplantation.
I haven’t seen any official Watchtower instruction to disfellowship someone for accepting a transplant, although it’s always possible the instruction was delivered verbally. -
Bartolomeo
the problem underlying the transplants was mainly related to the conception of the time that the heart (organ) was actually "the seat of feelings and motives", what was later called "the symbolic heart". The change of understanding is documented in our literature and took place in 1988 (dx86-22 Heart - understanding clarified (1988): it-1 1057-1058)
Until then and especially in the early years of transplant surgery the position was of a general disgust towards this kind of surgery and by extension towards any form of organ transplantation.
w71 3/1 pp. 133-139 How Is Your Heart?5 Where and what is your heart? You may say, What heart are you talking about? You know you have a heart in your chest, one that is pumping blood throughout your entire body, serving every single cell with that stream of life. But do you have another “heart” in your head, a “figurative heart”? Is it part of your brain or is it that abstract capacity of the brain that we call the “mind”? No! The brain, in which the mind resides, is one thing and the heart in our thorax, with its power of motivation, is another thing.
g70 10/22 pp. 29-31 Watching the World
Personality Change
◆ According to a report that appeared on United Press International of August 18, 1970, the daughter of Philip Blaiberg said that he had experienced a complete personality change after undergoing a heart-transplant operation. Blaiberg was one of the first to receive a transplanted heart. His daughter observed: “I don’t know if it was the drugs or just the transplant, but he was a different man.”