Yep, they can, and may, do all the above, and it could maybe make the WTS come out squeaky clean. What a "great and wonderful" act this would be. Praise Jehovah, that his organization, would then be squeaky clean, at the expense of childrens lives, newborn babies chances to live, and the unbearable suffering of the parents, who sacrificed their children upon the alter of the WTS. YaaaY, for the squeaky clean image of the WTS, built upon the bones of dead children.
Is the end of Watchtowers hated No Blood doctrine in sight?
by nicolaou 28 Replies latest watchtower medical
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smiddy
I personally have never heard of a practicing J .W , .suing , the W.T B & T S over the death of a child due to there policy on the no blood rule.
And I don`t know if there has ever been an ex J.W. to sue the W.T. organization for the same reason.
Anybody know otherwise ?
smiddy
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punkofnice
Hope for the best, plan for the worst. My Dad's philosophy.
In the case of the WBT$, I can't see tham being any less controlling about blood.
I think they would be afraid that if they came out and said that blood transfusions were okay, they'd have to fight a lot of damage control.....ie. lose money.
Possibly, only if one of their lives depended on a blood transfusion, would any member of the Governing body, or the ones that pull their strings, make sure they got away with it...or had miraculous new light(TM).
The WBT$ has enjoyed being abusive and power tripping. Why would it give up the perversions it enjoys?
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OnTheWayOut
The Oregon case is an example of how slow the process is. The state is trying to save infants from the religious beliefs of their parents and not from the religion itself. Headway toward elimination of that religion will come when someone, say a grandparent who felt the loss, successfully sues the religion over the matter.
But the groundwork is there.
I read a rumor that Watchtower eliminated the Theocratic Ministry School, largely in part because Australia and other places require background checks or other minimum standards of training for anyone involved in a "school" where children are enrolled- no exceptions. So Sunday School or Theocratic Ministry School would come up under that requirement. Watchtower's response to eliminate a "school" with children in it would be a solid reaction similar to the (hoped for) abandoning of the automatic disassociation for a blood transfusion. It may take one successful lawsuit or one aggressive new law in some country to bring that about.
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Lee Elder
A Physician who worked closely with AJWRB proposed another solution in this article:
Journal of Medical Ethics
Ultimately, it is the WTS policy to decide what to do with. Personally, I would have guessed that they would have put further distance between themselves and this monstrous nonsense that was born in the ignorance of C.J. Woodworth, and nurtured by WTS men who knew almost nothing of science and precious little more of Bible scholarship.It may well be that they continue to believe and hold out hope that either artificial blood or the great tribulation are going to come along and save them from this mess. If so, the policy may be here to stay.
Call me an optimist, but I still think they will eventually realize they have more to gain than lose by simply distancing themselves from this.
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Vidiot
Dunedain - "If they ever decided to essentially, completely do away with the 'blood issue', the WTS would have so much blood guilt, it would not be funny."
I think a pretty strong argument could be made that they're already bloodguilty.
Dunedain - "Make no mistakes, the LEGAL ramifications, is the only reason that it is still in effect..."
No, it's not.
They also (indirectly) profit from so-called "bloodless" medical technology.
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konceptual99
I came straight out a while back and said to a friend on mine who is on a HLC in the UK that it seemed like there was far more leniency towards accepting blood, that there was seemingly lots of avocation of treatments and that I could see the organisation perhaps making blood transfusions a non-sanctioned conscience issue.
He almost fell off his chair in shock.
He strongly denied that any of my comments had any basis in fact. He said that they were very careful not to impose anything on the conscience of individuals however he did concede that it was frustrating when a Witness refused certain treatments that many others readily accept. He said that people were regularly getting disciplined for accepting blood. Interestingly it seems that when considering a person's plea of repentance they would take a major steer on if the person had a up to date medical alert card and had it on them or took other precautions when going in for surgery.
He said there was zero watering down of the stance and that there was just as much emphasis on keeping a clean conscience about the use of blood as there ever was.
Sit down and STFU basically.
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punkofnice
koncept - My goodness, they are so messed up. It shows that things are changing around them and they haven't got a clue. Makes me think about how we 'apostates(TM)' know more about the 'truth(TM)' than the JWs do. -
OneEyedJoe
One Eyed Joe:
How is that going to work? They still do the "blood cards" - don't they? Their whole rant on those blood cards is about remaining faithful.My plan for slowly backing away from the blood doctrine over several years:
- Stop mentioning blood in the magazines altogether. They've already stopped doing this somewhat, as I can't remember the last time that they had the part on the service meeting where everyone filled out a new blood card and then after the meeting everyone's walking around getting someone to sign theirs as a witness.
- Have an occasional casual mention about how some requirements that the 1st century christians lived by were put in place so as not to stumble those that were still very emotionally attached to the jewish laws. Again, don't mention blood here, give other examples.
- At the same time they can slowly begin changing the HLC's duties to general moral support for those that are infirm and remove the focus on blood as their reason for being. They can find many scriptures to support the idea that christians should show love to those in need and everyone will think that they're just reinforcing something that was already the case.
- Remove any penalties for use of blood products via a BOE letter that only the elders read. Perhaps cite legal reasons and open with "in view of the critical times in which we live..." The elders won't think anything has changed with doctrine, just that the org is avoiding lawsuits. It will be left "in Jehovah's hands" if anyone takes blood and no sanctions will be pursued against them (possibly with the stipulation that they have to stay quiet about taking blood).
- After a couple years, stop issuing the DPA/blood card stuff for newly baptized ones. It will be explained (to elders only via a BOE letter) that new converts are responsible for using their bible trained conscience and should be moved to draft the documentation themselves. Most will put it off and forget.
- After a certain point a new elders manual will be printed that will not include any mention of blood, or medical DPAs or any of that. It'll be forgotten.
- Issue a QFR or similar stating that they don't want to get involved in medical treatment and all such decisions should be left to each individual's bible-trained conscience and all related matters will be "left in Jehovah's hands." Again, no mention of blood.
- If they want to fully abolish the blood ban (I don't see why they'd ever go this far) they could write a WT article about not judging one another for their personal choices and not pushing your choices on others (obviously it will be full of doublespeak because judging each other is an integral part of JWism) and at about paragraph 17 when everyone's bored and barely paying attention they'll mention something about blood. Footnote references to articles from steps 2 and 7 will make it seem like they've always taught this. State the blood ban was only important for first century christians and is a matter for each person's conscience.
Now, all that said, I think the blood ban is probably much more important to the survival of the cult than most give it credit for. If the GB realizes this, they'll never get rid of it. It's a powerful tool for indoctrination - it seems like a low stakes thing to fill out a blood card, everyone does so thinking "it'll never happen to me" because humans have a documented poor ability to estimate the likelihood of unlikely events, especially bad ones. They fill out the card, essentially pledging to die for the cult, and that becomes a powerful tool to trigger CD in the victim. Talks about blood and loyalty remind the R/F that they've pledged their life to the cult. Any doubts that come to mind conflict with the idea that they've pledged to die for the cult because they do not want to consider the possibility that they've done something so drastic in support of a false cult. It's even stronger if they know someone who's died as a result or if they had a close call or have children who's lives they've pledged to the cult in this way. The thought that this loss or potential loss was for naught will keep them from examining their problems with the cult and they remain trapped.