A BLOOD QUESTION

Mary

OK, I'd like your viewpoint on this. I might be going in for surgery and of course with any surgery there's a chance that you might need a blood transfusion. For obvious reasons, I think it would be better if I stored my own blood beforehand in case it was needed. Now what is the Society's reasoning on why you can't store your own blood before an operation? (not that I give a rat's ass what their reasoning is) And how much sense does that make when they now allow someone else's "blood fractions" if you need it but you're not supposed to use your own?

Also, seeing as I'd be going over to the good ol' USofA for the surgery, does anyone know if there would be any problem getting my blood through Customs at the Canada/U.S border?

RandomTask

They don't allow it, although it seemed that they almost did at one point a few years ago:

http://www.watchtowerinformationservice.org/bloodcard.htm

Scully

Autologous donations (ones that you make for your own use during surgery) are done with Canadian Blood Services. They would be your best resource for information about shipping blood to the US for your surgery. Since blood is basically a medical tissue, there should be no issues with your blood being transported across the border. They do it all the time in cases of organ donation or bone marrow transplants and sometimes the blood we donate to CBS or to the Red Cross goes overseas.

Just make sure you make the arrangements with the facility where you are planning to have surgery, and ensure that they are aware that you wish to do autologous blood donations for your surgery. You may be able to make a couple of trips down in the meantime so that your blood gets stored in their bloodbank, too, and save on the hassle of having to transport your blood for the surgery (what if it gets lost in transit??)

Love, Scully

Mary

Oh my god, I can't believe what I just read!!!

"...In our view, this may be one of those situations where the governing body voted to permit Jehovah's Witnesses to use their own blood and put the wheels in motion to change the policy - only to have one member of the body change their mind at the last second and call for a re-vote..."

Sounds eerily like what happened with the whole Malawi situation: one guy changed his vote and thousands died as a result.

"....Even now Jehovah's Witnesses who write for permission to withdraw and store their blood for the use of WTS approved blood fractions are told they may do so. At present huge quantities of blood are donated by non-JWs, stored and processed to provide all of the blood products permitted by the Watchtower Society...."

Is this really true?! They'll really give permission to use your own blood for an operation?? This is certainly a step in the right direction.......

RandomTask

Like with anything WTS related, you have to parse this carefully. What they say is that you may store your own blood for fractional use, not for whole blood use. For example, the WTS now allows its adherents to accept certain "fractions" of blood, thaey can utilize their own stored blood for these fractions only and cannot retransfuse the whole blood.

TD

Now what is the Society's reasoning on why you can't store your own blood before an operation?

Believe it or not, the JW's based this stance on the Deutoronimic instruction regarding the butchering of wild animals for food!

Since wild animals were put to death from a distance using methods that didn't sufficiently bleed the carcass, (e.g. A spear or an arrow as opposed to using a knife to slit the throat in the kosher manner) additional steps were required to bleed the carcass. (e.g. The blood of a wild creature was to be poured out and covered with dust.)

The JW's interpret this to mean that "blood removed from the body must be poured out." This was their sole basis for prohibiting autologous predonation. Exactly why they think butchering an animal was relevant to surgery, I'll never know.

Further, anybody who has every hunted or butchered a farm animal should recognize the problem with this interpretation. When you slaughter an animal, the blood is not first removed and then poured out. The blood is removed by being poured out.

The JW interpretation assigns a posteriority of the pouring out relative to the removal and consequently involves at least a transitory storage of the blood that did not exist outside the formal ritual of shechitah. It's yet another instance of the Witnesses colossal ignorance of Judaism.

Mary

The JW's interpret this to mean that "blood removed from the body must be poured out." This was their sole basis for prohibiting autologous predonation

Yes I can see how they could mistake a dead animal for a living human..........I wonder how many have died due to this stupid rule..........

Crazy151drinker

I dont know about bringing your own blood over. However, we do have plenty of Alcohol which I have found to be a very good blood substitute.....

Cassiline

I don't understand this at all. If you can use one of those blood recirculating devices why not be allowed to store your own blood?

Can someone explain the reasoning for not allowing this? It is your own blood they are putting back in your body, just one that was 'stored' and another which was readily avaliable.

Cassi, confused

TD

I don't understand this at all. If you can use one of those blood recirculating devices why not be allowed to store your own blood?

In the past at least, the JW's have rationalized the use of cell savers, (intraoperative autotransfusion) kidney dialysis and heartlung machines as being an "extension" of their circulatory system.

In other words, they believed that the blood had not actually "left the body" when these machines were used and therefore didn't need to be "poured out."

As an example of the hair-splitting going on here; Isovolemic hemodilution was forbidden to Witnesses for over a decade. What finally made it acceptable was the addition of a small tube, which allowed some of the blood to circulate from the storage bags, back to the patient.

A BLOOD QUESTION

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