JW father in India chooses faith over his daughter's life

by Gopher 20 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  Gopher

  http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1046883,0006.htm

  Man chooses faith over his daughter?s life

  Pramod Giri Siliguri, October 8

  A man in West Bengal who refused to provide a blood transfusion to his critically ill daughter because his religion forbade it has been arrested.

  Sanjay Lakra is a follower of the group Jehovah's Witnesses, who believe that blood transfusions are a sin. So when doctors told him that his two-year-old daughter would die unless she was given a blood transfusion, he refused to allow it.

  Local reporters then met Darjeeling SP Rajeev Mishra and requested him to do something to save the child and a police team from Bagdogra was immediately rushed to the Lakra home.

  Lakra fled his home with his daughter after he heard that the police was looking for him. His wife Sarita told the police: "It is up to God whether my daughter will live or die. She won't be given blood."

  Lakra was caught later and the child admitted to Siliguri Sadar Hospital.

  Mishra has instructed hospital authorities to provide the child with a blood transfusion whether her father agreed to it or not.

  On Tuesday, the child was admitted in the North Bengal Medical College Hospital where doctors said she was suffering from acute renal failure, anaemia as well as bacillary dysentery and needed a transfusion urgently.

  But Lakra withdrew the girl from hospital and took her to Bagdogra Rural Hospital to find out if alternative treatment was possible. Ranjit Bhagat of the hospital told HT: "I explained to him that only an immediate blood transfusion would save his child, but he took her away."

  The Bagdogra office of Jehovah's Witnesses was closed on Thursday. Father Gabriel Minz, a Catholic priest in Bagdogra, said that there was nothing written in the Bible against blood transfusions. Another Catholic priest in Kurseong said: "We encourage blood donations."

  Jehovah's Witnesses was formed by Charles Taze Russell in America in 1872. The cult has 4 million members worldwide. They hold that the cross is a pagan symbol and that Jesus had died at the stakes. They refuse to vote, salute the flag, sing any national anthem or serve in the armed forces.

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  Jehovah?s Witnesses

  ** Formed in US in 1872, has 4 million members worldwide

  ** They deny divinity of Christ and the concept of Hell

  ** They believe that the cross is a pagan symbol

  ** They refuse to vote, salute the flag, sing any national anthem or serve in the armed forces. They do not celebrate Christmas.
• 

  Gopher

  These parents make me ill. The Watchtower influence has made them run away from hospitals with a desparately sick child. And now the wife says it's up to God as to whether this child will live? It seems like they've already made their decision. God didn't prevent this child from getting serious renal failure and other life-threatening symptoms, so the situation won't cure itself.

  Good for the authorities who acted in this little girl's best interest.

  And shame on the Watchtower for putting dangerous ideas about health care into parents' minds.

  The Watchtower is an extremely minor religion in southern Asia, and thanks to publicity like this will remain that way.
• 

  Happy Guy :)

  Sad.
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  mkr32208

  I would absolutly take either of my daughters from my wife if she insisted that they not recieve a blood trasnfusion if they needed it! and god help the elder that gets in my way...
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  Mulan

  ...............and yet a few years or months ago, most of us would have applauded him.

  It shows how far we have come.
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  Sam Beli

  The only good thing I have learned from this article is that the JWs have shrunk from 6 million to 4 million. Let?s hope that they are down to 2 million next year.
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  Country_Woman

  If the number of 4.000.000 wittnesses is correct, then they have lost 1/3 of their members in appr. 2,5 years ?

  that's some progress !!

  Wonder what the yearbook is telling
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  johnny cip

  i only hope this father gets 50 years in jail and the mother gets 49 years. and the indian gov't shuts down the wt there. i fact the gov't should arrest all the jw's at the local branch office , and give them all 50 years in prison and then invite the govern body in brooklyn to take their place in prison. i'll bet the wt leaders would not go and take thier place. what hypocrites. all the wt leaders should be taken to the hospital and have their wrists slit. just to see haw many would beg for mercy and blood?
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  lawrence

  Mulan-

  So right you are!
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  BluesBrother

  Marilyn (Mulan) is right again.. The victims of this are both the daughter and her father. I am sure he loves his daughter, but he is misled , misguided, misinformed and mistaken to trust them .. The perpetrators of this wrong are those who sit in Brooklyn having the full modern medical knowledge and still refuse to budge on the central issue , even though the have fudged the issue and violated the principle of it by allowing "fractions" While they sit on their pride , people [occasionally] can still die. The blame is theirs.