IT HAS BEGUN "BIG" NEWS ON AP NEWS WIRE

by DannyHaszard 402 Replies latest watchtower medical

• 

  IronClaw

  Danny, please explain... what exactly will happen next week? (I've been out of the loop lately... have no idea what they're talking about)

  Looks like something will be happening at the Service meeting for week starting Jan 30,2006. Here are the 2 parts that will be discussed.

  15 min: Loving Provisions for Our

  Benefit. To be handled by an elder.

  Read and discuss the January

  3, 2006, letter from the branch

  office to all congregations concerning

  ways to benefit from the activities

  of the Hospital Liaison Committee

  (HLC) and the Patient Visitation

  Group (PVG).

  20

  min: "A Video That Highlights

  an Important Medical Trend." Read

  Acts 15:28, 29, and briefly emphasize

  that the principal reason why Christians

  refuse blood transfusions is to

  honor God's law on the sanctity of

  blood. Then get right into a discussion

  of the

  Patient Needs and Rights

  video, using the questions that are

  provided in the article. Conclude by

  reading the last paragraph.

  Song 45 and concluding prayer.

  To view the article that will be discussed on the video go to http://www.reexamine.org/OKM/jan2006.pdf

  My wife tells me the elders in her congo made sure everbody had a copy of this video, so somethings up.
• 

  Rabbit

  I sent links from the AP story & Kerrys' Journal of Church & State article to the editor @ the Ft.Worth Star-Telegram, Channel 5 NBC news and my old 'preachin' & teachin' stomping ground...the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary !

  I told them I was once assigned as a pioneer to 'work' their Seminary Student Housing for a few years ...and hoped they would forgive me for peddling magazines there. I asked for their help in exposing this dangerous cult thru their many churches and media contacts.

  If I remember correctly...and I do...we were not exactly welcome out there.

  Paybacks are a be-yatch !

  I'm going to find E-mail addresses for other churches, send them the link...and suggest they print the article for their bulletin boards. That should provide hours of fun conversation for JW's that knock on their doors.

  Thank you, Barbara & Kerry and everyone else exited about these developments.

  Rabbit (waves to WT... How are they hanging, GB ?)
• 

  Oroborus21

  To answer someone's question:

  The Associated Press is a huge wire service. It's focus is generally National news & features. Its international counterpart is UPI.

  A paper subscribes to the wire service which continuously spits out story after story all day long. Few national or large metro newspapers run AP stories, preferring their own staff, unless it is a scoop/exclusive story, or for certain sections and small pieces.

  Small-town newspapers rely heavily on the AP. IN the hometown that I grew up, the Artesia Daily Press ran AP stories on the front page/news section and in the other sections. Practically only the local news and sports were covered by beat writers.

  It is up to the individual paper to select which AP stories it will run. there are probably fewer religious articles in comparison to regular news articles so the chances that this piece would run in a local paper in the religion section are pretty good.

  By the way, just because it is on the website of a paper, it doesn't mean that it will be in the actual publication (newspaper or magazine, for example I would wait to see whether the article will actually be in Forbes magazine - I doubt it.) Needless to say many more pieces appear on the website than in the printed publication.

  Just some notes regarding the article itself - you will carefully observe that the underlying legal issue is not really in discussion and in fact the article cites Ms. Louderback (unquoted) as admitting that her legal theory is "untested" and yet to be proven in court.

  In my opinion the article doesn't actually convey any real news. We all know that the Service Meeting discussion as regularly scheduled about this time every year is just going to be the usual shpiel (sp?) about the Durable Power of Attorney/Advanced Health Care forms, the usual nonsense about the Hospital Liaison Committees, and a reiteration of the Society's most recent position. The video too doesn't contain anything new or groundbreaking as we know so any discussion about it is not special. The meeting next week is the same thing that happens every year. So where is the news?

  The AP writer is evidently unfamiliar with what is normal and maybe thinks that the "discussion" is something reactive to the Louderback article but he would be wrong. We all know that the JCS broke in December and the January KMs are planned many months before (at least three months judging by the stats published in each which trail 3 months behind). These were received by the congregations in December, so it is a factual impossibility that the two are actually connected. yet the AP writer somewhat dramatically tries to connect the two.

  The only "news" actually contained in the article is that it shows that Bethel is aware of the Louderback article and now on record with a quote regarding it. I think that is interesting.

  -Eduardo

  PS: Sevenof6 - Your comments are completely speculative and despite the continued proclamations of doom and gloom and supposed fear over litigation, the facts do not support your Casandra-like ramblings.* If the Society is silent (and this AP article contains a supposed quote from a Bethel rep) regarding the JCS article, it isn't due to fear of litigation, it is because the piece is inconsequential. Randy's work, Lee Elder's work, Bill Bowen's work, even Kent's work have all raised many more areas of questioning and legitimate legal concerns than the JCS article ever will.

  *the difference noted of course that Casandra was correct and you are not. :-)
• 

  bebu

  I have contacted stations near me now with the forbes/religion today news article. Hope they perk up to read it!

  Next, to alert local hospitals.

  bebu
• 

  seven006

  Randy's work, Lee Elder's work, Bill Bowen's work, even Kent's work have all raised many more areas of questioning and legitimate legal concerns than the JCS article ever will.
  
  
  
  
  
  Did you ever design that web site for the two hot chick models who you said asked you to do it for them or are you playing lawyer this week again?
  
  Dave
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  Eduardo,

  You just don’t get it, do you?

  The news is that innocents continue to die as a consequence of an insane teaching. Is there something in that you fail to grasp?

  It’s also news to probably a majority of readers because, contrary to what the WTS wants everyone to believe, the majority of earth’s population knows practically nothing about worshippers of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Incorporated. Hence it is news to most of the population that unsuspecting children die, and that hemorrhaging mothers die, etc., and all under a misguided belief forced upon them under pain of extreme shunning by a corporate organization that has the balls to print something as outrageously dishonest as this: “Any medical risk of refusing blood is probably less than the risks involved in accepting blood transfusions.”

  Society eventually tires of despots like the governing body, and they look to either their justice system to put a stop to it or else their legislative system to tell the judicial system what to do.

  Have you ever heard of a little pamphlet named Common Sense?

  Marvin Shilmer
• 

  Oroborus21

  PS:

  The AP story is about the supposed "new directive" aka the January 3, 2006 BOE letter to be read. Has anyone seen this letter or is there someone that can post this letter or relevant parts of it here for us to consider?

  My first inclination and suspicion is that this BOE letter (5 pages) is going to be a rote rehashing of current policy and not actually have anything new about it but we won't know until we either see the letter or go the meeting will we?

  I wonder though if it turns out that the BOE letter is actually nothing new, or newsworthy, whether the AP writer will consider writing a retraction along the lines of "sorry, I wasn't aware that they rehash this crap every year in January and that there is actually no news here"

  yeah right

  -Eduardo
• 

  DaCheech

  They always rehash this stuff every year with a new twinge. Elders are nothing but yes men
• 

  Oroborus21

  
  Marvin, I have a volume of Thomas Paine's collected writings so not only have I heard of it, I have actually read it - and I think the analogy quite strained.

  I am certainly not for the doctrine, I believe it to be a false one and one which continues to marginalize Jehovah's Witnesses from the rest of the Christian community and I desire as much as anyone to see it go.

  I still don't see any news here, even for outsiders as most persons know that JWs reject blood, although I suppose there is some educational value in telling outsiders that blood fractions are permissible since they might not know that fact. All JWs know that blood fractions are permissible and despite claims to the contrary, I don't think there is really any confusion on current JWs part - [other than perhaps they might be puzzled (as they should be) in the back of their minds as to why any fractions would be a "conscience matter" or not completely banned. The allowance of fractions and indeed the entire doctrine and policies don't make either logical or scriptural sense, so all rational persons (even JWs) should feel some bafflement over it all] - but all JWs now know that fractions are a conscience matter even if they might not immediately know what gamma globulin is for example.

  But the AP article is not focused on the fact that blood fractions are allowed. It focuses on the supposed "new directive" (the January BOE letter to be read next week) and it suggests (or rather directly states) that the mere reading of it, is possibly going to "cause confusion" among Witnesses since they know that blood fractions are allowed. It also references the 2000 WT article/change which dealt with the fractions allowance and implies that there is some contradiction in message.

  The cited quote the AP writer provides this question:

  Without noting the 2000 change, the new directive tells parents to consider this: "Can any doctor or hospital give complete assurance that blood or blood fractions will not be used in treatment of a minor?"

  I haven't seen the BOE letter so I don't know the context of the quote, but if I were to guess, I would think that the Society is here discussing the supposed value of having the HLCs and PVOs involved and perhaps it is suggesting that these persons can help monitor the Hospital or doctors and help to assure that the patient's wishes are followed. (Not a bad thing in itself if one wishes to refuse blood -but a horrible arrangement if one wishes to accept blood or wishes to keep their medical treatment confidential. I would reiterate that I would not sign the new documents or allow HLC members or anyone else to have access to my medical records and would cross out those provisions of the form or better yet, use a different Advanced Heathcare Directive prepared by an attorney.)

  What seems odd about this whole thing is that if the AP writer had advanced access or has already read the "directive"/BOE letter, isn't there something juicier or rather more important that he could have cited from the document? The fact that the article doesn't contain any excerpt from the BOE letter that actually sets forth NEW POLICY leads me to believe that the BOE letter is really just a rehash of the same old crap and current blood doctrine.

  It also suggests to me that the writer is working awfully hard to create some sense of "controversy" when actually there really isn't any. That strikes me as biased and poor journalism but that is just MHO.

  -Eduardo PS: it isn't surprising that the article would get a lot of play. Religious sections of papers are hard to fill anyway and the AP is very respected. On top of that any story about JWs is going to be considered interesting since the group is controversial and many persons are not familiar with the actual doctrines, teachings and practices of JWs. And in addition, the blood doctrine in particular is one which all normal people know is a crazy and stupid doctrine that makes JWs seem radical and even cultic, so any story about the blood doctrine makes for even better copy. (even one which seems to be actually about nothing and seems to show that the writer actually doesn't know much about JWs) As I stated in my first post, I think that every small town paper will carry the article for these reasons and maybe a lot of the larger pubs will have it on their website versions or in their AP wire sections (which is really just automatic). But nothing about this AP article changes or affects the underlying issues of both 1) change of the blood doctrine and 2) whether the JCS/Louderback-Wood legal theory has merit or can be actually effective in a court of law
• 

  The Leological One

  Hi,
  

  I know I'm missing something here, but I'm happy to see anything that has a chance of putting a hurt on the idiocy of the WT and potentially at least helping to keep innocent people from losing their lives and the lives of loved ones due to such an idiotic policy. Peace, and may the WT and its policies be the full-on target~!