Adoption by Jehovah's Witnesses is blocked (page 3)

kenyata

I think its bogus how this female gives up her kid and then has the
nerve to say who can adopt. Obviously, you weren't being a parent and
you couldn't do the job so you don't have the right to say who can adopt the child, regardless of religion. Maybe some religion is what
you need. What about the natural father, is he in the picture? How dare she. And the adoption agency shouldn't even go along with some one like that. As long as this home is stable, loving and will genuinely care for this child, that should be enough.

AlanF

Kenyata said:

: As long as this home is stable, loving and will genuinely care for this child, that should be enough.

Bingo! JWs do not in general genuinely care for their children. Their first loyalty is to the Watchtower Society, not to family. If the Society tells parents of a hemophiliac, "Let your child die before giving him a necessary hemophilia treatment" (which is made from blood), most JWs will let the child die. If the Society changes its mind and then allows hemophilia treatments, most JW parents will then act so that the child lives. Is that showing love for children?

As for blood transfusions, no one disputes that transfusions can be dangerous and that if you have a choice between having one and having a workable substitute treatment you should choose the latter. The dispute is about situations where there is no alternative between dying and having a transfusion, like if you're severely injured and bleeding out fast. That's where the Society's policies about blood are death-dealing. Moreover, their policies are unscriptural. Read the material on the website http://www.jwbloodreview.org and you'll get an inkling of why.

AlanF

tergiversator

A hypothetical situation: a witness couple adopts a child. They teach the child about their religion, which he accepts and gets baptized as a young teen (say 12-13). Then, upon coming of age, the child decides he wants nothing to do with the religion (he doesn't care about religion, he realizes he doesn't believe it anymore, he gets disillusioned by how he is treated in the congregation for something, maybe he finds his birth family and wants to celebrate holidays with them - there's plenty of reasons why this could happen).

Question: how loving will the witness parents be when their child is disfellowshipped? (And DON'T say that "shunning him shows how much they love him, because that will show him the error of his ways").

fodeja

Even if my mother wasn't a JW's, I'd still be against blood trans
fusions. I'd take the fake blood anyday. When you see cases where
a person gets a blood transfusion and years later, they find out
they have some kind of disease and they've possibly passed it on to
their kids, no thanks.

Underlying assumption: "blood" therapies have risks, "non-blood" therapies do not.

The medical community does not have even remotely the same kind of long-term experience with what you call fake blood, that it has collected during decades of blood-based therapies. There may be serious risks involved with alternatives like HemoPure (which, as you may not know, is made from bovine blood), just like with any other therapy.

The JW "argument from health risk" is just plain idiotic. "We don't just refuse blood because Jehovah doesn't like it. We also refuse it because it's dangerous". Huh?

First, is it better to give up and die (risk of death = 100%) than to try a potentially life-saving therapy (risk of death < 100%)?!

Second, why don't JWs refuse antibiotics or any other medical treatment which has known side-effects, some of them very serious? If Jehovah is so concerned about health issues, why didn't he warn his faithful followers to avoid drugs like Contergan?!

Third, if you claim that blood therapies are dangerous, present facts. I want to see data, not rumours. No Afake! articles full of unattributed quotations by some doctor, torn out of context to twist the meaning. No stories told at the Kingdom hall. Not what Brother Y heard from Sister Z telling what her mother-in-law was told by her sister, who cleans the local veterinarian's windows for a living. If possible, add comparisons to alternative "bloodless" therapies. Give me full references to serious medical journals that I can look up at the University library. No gossip.

If you can't, it's probably better to stick to holy writ, revelations, personal communication with the Holy Spirit or whatever. Whenever JW writers try to fake their way through any sort of science, they fail miserably.

f.

kenyata

Who says that a JW couple can only adopt a child who's a JW? A child
wouldn't be a JW anyways, remember, they don't get baptised when their
babies like the church people do. They make that decision when they get older and their old enough to understand what kind of decision
they are making. It shouldn't matter what religious background the
child comes from, as long as they are going into a stable environment.

kenyata

I have no sympathy for the natural mother, she has no rights to decide what religion adopts her kid, she gave up her rights when she
gave up her kid.

AlanF

Excellent comments, fodeja!

I want to add that JWs are extremely dishonest in claiming that they refuse blood because it's dangerous. They imply that God wants people to abstain from blood transfusions because it's dangerous, and that's why they constantly harp on the dangers. But their actual arguments about God's wants have nothing to do with such danger. They argue that God views blood as sacred, not as dangerous, and so that's why God doesn't want people to use blood for anything at all.

The Society's claims about the dangers of blood are thoroughly disingenuous and designed only to fool JWs and the medical community into thinking that their idiotic religious restrictions are backed by scientific data. The fact is that the Society screwed up royally back in the 1940s by equating taking a transfusion with eating blood. This was due to the grossly stupid views of Fred Franz and a few others who had been deceived about vaccinations and such by the supreme nutcase C. J. Woodworth. Having said so much, they stupidly stuck with their basic claim for the next few decades. Today the Society is perfectly well aware that a transfusion is not eating blood, but again, having said so much, they can't back down without losing a lot of face. And that's why JW leaders are so stubborn -- their pride and their claim to speak for God would be greatly damaged by admitting they were wrong for decades and that their stupid policies resulted in many needless deaths. They also know that backing down would be an admission of bloodguilt.

AlanF

Dear kenyata, it's becoming obvious that you have little idea what you're talking about. JW children often get baptized at very young ages -- far too young to make such an important and irrevocable decision. I've heard of children as young as seven getting baptized. My mother did at age ten. I did at age 15. Western society recognizes that children under age 18 are rather poor at making big decisions like this, and that's why children under 18 cannot be held to a legal contract. They cannot generally marry without parents' permission until age 18. Why would anyone think that joining a religious organization that might disfellowship them and cause the death of family relations would be less subject to age restrictions than getting married?

AlanF

tergiversator

Kenyata,

I think you missed my point. If a witness couple adopts a child, we're most likely talking about a little kid - baby, toddler. Are they not going to teach him about their religion, which they believe is the truth? The question I'm asking is: is it fair to let a child be adopted by a couple who will raise him in a religion that will teach him that the one thing he must never do is leave the religion, or else his new family will abandon him just as much as his birth family did?

"Old enough to understand what kind of decision they are making", in my mind, does not mean the age at which most witness kids get baptized (12-16). Teenagers can understand perfectly well that they want to serve God; they are much less able to discern if the religion they are raised in is the right way to do so.

-T.

largo

thats right alanF, blood is sacred and we should abstain from consumption. that is the main reason why JW's abstain from it. of course only a person of true faith would see the importance of such decision. as for it being unsafe, well it was unsafe for awhile then docotor found out about blood types and terrible contamination of blood could lead to serious health risks. but now moder science has found a way to keep those risk to a low minium. but that still does not change the fact that Jehovahs asks his fatihful followers to abstain from blood and in modern day blood transfusions fall in that catagory. it's a very easy to say it but it's another world to be in that situation. i guess that's why people are so uptight about it.

..::: be free :::..
http://www.theomoi.com

Adoption by Jehovah's Witnesses is blocked

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