If the blood transfusion ban was lifted tomorrow...... (page 2)

Elsewhere

JWs will say: Well, it was a conscience matter all along... nothing has really changed.

What Elsewhere said...for the most part. JWs today don't appear to have any very clear idea of what the blood policy actually is. The WTS has obscured things nicely with all of the acceptable fractions and the "conscience matter" addendum. I think it would be only the ones who lost close friends and family members to this policy that would be outraged. There's something very self-serving about many JWs....if something hasn't affected them directly, they have little difficulty letting it slide.

M.J.

I think Elsewhere nailed it. No one will ever remember or even realize that it resulted in DF-ing or DA-ing in the first place. If they made it a "don't ask don't tell" policy then they might be able to weasel out of an outright reversal in postion...just an elimination of the official sanctions. Officially they can still condemn it albeit in a more vague way.

willyloman

JWs today don't appear to have any very clear idea of what the blood policy actually is. The WTS has obscured things nicely with all of the acceptable fractions and the "conscience matter" addendum. I think it would be only the ones who lost close friends and family members to this policy that would be outraged. There's something very self-serving about many JWs....if something hasn't affected them directly, they have little difficulty letting it slide.

Right on.

serendipity

This item would probably send my mother over the edge, since she refused blood for my father and he died.

garybuss

They would deny there was ever a "BAN". They'll say it was ALWAYS a conscience matter and SOME Witness people CHOSE to not have blood medical treatment according to their own personal choice.

That's what these weasels did with the alternative military service change.

skeeter1

I would dance for the future saved lives, then cry for all those who died prematurely. Medical doctors will sing praises to Jehovah. Fox News would have a ticker, "Jehovah's Witnesses reverse blood ban." It might get a 1 minute spot on national news channells - but not much more. Pat Robinson would call the JW's a false religion (which he already does, so no big news there). After four days, the world will stop talking about it and go on the next, bigger news problem. Think about it, no one out in the "real world" really cares about what the WTS is doing, or not doing, anyway. The Watchtower Society would use the short-lived bad press as further proof of persecution. The WTS would find a way to make the change into "New Light" or find a way to say that we all misunderstood the original blood ban (aka Y1975 correction). In the end the WTS will prove itself right, as it always does.

Gill

I must admit that I have already been told by many JWs, only a couple of years ago, that NOT taking blood was always a conscience matter, and was told recently by my mother, that when the local PO , who is also head of the HLC around here, gave a talk on the new blood cards etc he said that NO ONE had ever been disfellowshiped for taking a blood transfusion.

So, why did the WTBTS, speaking to the press, say that JWs would no longer be DF'D if they took blood but 'just be considered Disassociated'.

Because, JWs who took blood used to be disfellowshiped. Try, trying to explain that to a brain dead JW, who can't think anything unless the WTBTS tells them to think it!! And, duh, if you're announced no longer a JW you bloody well DF'd anyway.

God! The frigging mind games that go on in JW land!!

jwfacts

I told my mother this would happen and she abused me and said it would never happen and to stop attacking her with such nonsence.
But even if it did happen most JW's are conditioned enough to believe it as new light.
I discussed the same thing about Transplants with my Auntie. Her answer was that God gave the prohibition during the 1970's to protect his people while transplants were dangerous. I imagine there will be a similar justification invented.

RubaDub

I certainly doubt that the Society would make the bold step of moving from the current position on blood to a "conscious matter" overnight. They have too much invested in it.

Just as it has evolved over the past 15 to 20 years, I would expect it to continue to move incrementally. I think the next obvious step would be to still restrict whole blood but make the four fractions acceptable.

I would expect the prohibition of storing ones own blood to go by the wayside in the not-to-distant future also.

Rub a Dub

If the blood transfusion ban was lifted tomorrow......