Posts by TD

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

David who was thirsty exclaimed he longed for water after being pinned down,his warriors heard that and fought to get water to David,but what did he do when they offered it to him?

He refused to drink it. ---Poured it out on the ground.

Why did he do this?

Because his (David's) men could easily have been killed. The water, in this instance, represented their lives, which they risked in obtaining it. David even compares it to drinking their blood.

I'm not sure how this supports the JW position on blood. If anything, it seems to directly contradict it.

David refused to place a higher value on water than human life

Aren't you doing exactly the opposite of what David did when you place a higher value on blood, which (in the context of death) represents life than you place on life itself?

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

Alex,

Whats the difference to taking a blood transfusion and just drinking blood

The former is a tissue transplant

The latter is an act of cannibalism

That is a substantial distinction, physically, ethically and morally.

...believers are told to abstain from blood

In the context of a dispute over whether Christians should be circumcised and follow the Law, the ruling was to:

"Keep abstaining....from blood"

I'm quoting your own NWT, which in my opinion, is quite accurate here.

The clear connotation is the continuation of an existing prohibition that was already being kept.

And this is not simply my opinion. As I've already pointed out, your own church publications acknowledge that this was in fact, a reference to the eating of blood as forbidden in the Law.

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

Alex,

Leaving the procured blood continuously attached to the patient through the collection tubing makes the procedure acceptable to most Jehovah's Witness patients.

Yes and this was the point I was driving at. You quoted an article from a time (1981) when this procedure was not acceptable to JW's in any form, as it was considered a storage of blood outside the body. (To be honest it is difficult to see that much blood (~Two units) collected in storage bags and not think it's being stored.)

As I said, JW HLC's recommend both uses of autologous blood today, (hemodilution and cell salvage) and in some cases have actually donated the equipment for the latter.

Rather that quote articles back and forth about a friendly discussion?

Do you believe that transfusion falls under the umbrella of biblical prohibitions against eating blood?

If so, why? I honestly don't see how the argument can be made without establishing an equivalency of some sort.....

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

Sigh...

I can assure you, Alex, that both procedures involve a temporary storage of blood.

As a simple thought experiment, why don't you describe hemodilution in your own words. You don't have to use medical terms if you don't want to. Simple layman's terms would be more than adequete

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

Alex,

Show the evidence,you just made a blank statement

What specifically are you having trouble believing?

You quoted word for word out the JW publication How Can Blood Save Your Life? which in turn quoted word for word from a 1981 article appearing in The Journal of the American Medical Association (November 27, 1981, Volume 246, No. 21, pages 2471, 2472.)

That information has been outdated for decades now. The March 1st 1989 issue of your own church publication, The Watchtower discussed both these procedures, (Intraoperative collection and hemodilution) stating that they were "matters of conscience."

--And that was 30+ years ago.

That JW's will accept treatment with CATS cell savers is common knowledge in the medical community today.

That JW's have in some cases actually donated these machines is also common knowledge. Here's an example from the UK:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1464475.stm

--And that was 18 years ago

Surely you don't think your church is donating expensive medical equipment for a procedure they find "objectionable?"

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

Techniques for intraoperative collection or hemodilution that involve blood storage are objectionable to them.

No they are not.

Changes were made to these procedures years ago which rendered them acceptable to the majority of JW's (In both cases a small amount of blood is allowed to recirculate, so that the flow is not completely interrupted.)

JW HLC's aggressively recommend cell saving technology today, even going so far as to donate money towards the purchase of equipment in some cases.

Alex if you don't know what material has and has not become out of date, then you should quit trying to speak for all of JW's. It's irresponsible when you don't know what you are talking about.

How about answering the questions that have been presented to you in your own words?

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

The Bible directs to abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from fornication.’ (Acts 15:29)

The JW Bible Encyclopedia, Insight On the Scriptures, under the article, "Paul" openly acknowledges that the mention of blood in Acts 15 was a reference to eating it as forbidden in the Law.

It therefore becomes incumbent upon you, the claimant, to bridge the gap between the eating of blood and the transfusion of blood.

Can you do this?

Surely you don't believe that the transplant of a human kidney, for example is the same as eating it simply because they both fall into the more generic category of "Taking in?"

That would be a childish equivocation.

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

Pallbearer,

So, I understand you to mean that there are NO prohibited fractions.

If you accecpt the self-serving JW definition of primary and secondary components, then yes. However as Jeff has pointed out, it's not a system of categorization used in transfusion medicine.

Then logically it would appear that if a person were to be given fractions of all four primary components he will have received whole blood.

From a moral perspective, yes. Not from a scientific perspective.

40

Questions About the Watchtower's View on Blood Transfusions.

by Pallbearer in

i admit to not being very well informed about the watchtower's view on blood transfusions.

i have a couple of questions that i hope someone here is able to answer.. i understand that the watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.. my first question is: are all fractions considered to be permissible?

and if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?.

TD

I understand that the Watchtower now considers it to be okay to receive blood fractions.

Fractions were first allowed in 1958, when serums and antitoxins derived from blood were declared to be, "matters of conscience."

Since then, the scope of acceptable preparations and procedures has steadily increased.

My first question is: Are ALL fractions considered to be permissible? And if not, specifically which fractions are not permissible?

JW's forbid what they consider to be the primary components of blood. These are:

Red Cells

White Cells

Platelets

Whole Plasma

JW's (Since the year 2000) allow fractions derived from any of these primary components.

My second question is: Can a person that has received blood fractions logically claim they have 'abstained from blood'? (Acts 15:19-20)

--Not an easy answer, as you are incorporating JW semantic legerdemein into your question. (Abstinance from a physical object is an ungrammatical concept.)

JW's would claim that fractions are not actually blood, which strikes me as a strained argument.

11

Ridiculous refusion of blood transfusions

by Uditha Jayatunga in

i had an encounter with a jehova's witness at my doorstep.

i challenged them on blood transfusions.

later i looked at jw website too.

TD

I have lots of friends who have taken blood transfusions, and all they have to say is that they just took the whole blood in fractions and the HLC approves it.

Bollocks....

Fractionization of the cellular components destroys them as such. They cannot be reconstituted. The derivative preparations are not administered either as transfusions on in transfusion scenarios.

The only problem is if you are in a Kingdom Hall where the HLC elders are really stupid and don't keep up with the JW website. If you are in that type of kingdom hall, then you will die

More bollocks.

HLC members do not get their information from the JW website. They are trained via seminars, lectures and private communication the average JW elder never even sees.

Neither are the committes tied to specific congregations. The arrangement is for want of a better term, an organization within an organization.