The stillborn children issue is not new light. It was just backing off from the standard blowhard position that was stumbling huge amounts of distraught JWs. The GB realized that it was a teaching that was just them, blowing smoke out of their butts with no basis for it in scripture. The thing is, miscarriages and stillbirth happen to almost every family, and usually very close. Ones child or sibling. Almost everyone has this happen. Blood comes up more than transplants, but both those things changed because of politics or pressure, too. The kid in the early 70s who was told that getting a transfusion would result in him being abandoned. . .that kind of dogmatism made JWs look like monsters because it is monstrous. So they have modified the "understanding"
When people are devastated, having their hope cut off just because (probably) Rutherford pronounced it in his all knowing godlike way and there was no biblical reason, well it would be stupid to stubbornly persist when the whole reason they join that cult is for the HOPE they are promised to meet their loved ones. Rutherford didn't care. His own son is a footnote in his life. But a"we don't know" allows them to dare hope. This is something they stood to lose on by being dogmatic.
Anyone else find it interesting that all these "bible students" need permission to be allowed to believe what they understood and they needed to seek authorization from the GB to say it?
No thought control there!