Blood Transfusion? (page 2)

waiting

7, I know how you feel about posting something personal about yourself. Sometimes you just feel like your 2 cents are worth it.

And your 2 cents are worth it. I'm sorry about your condition and the possible eventuality of it. I also face an eventuality which I don't like to think about - makes for a strange bedfellow, doesn't it? Unless you have a campanion in your mind and body that you didn't ask for and don't want - it's hard to understand how it feels.

One of the hardest issues I had to face during therepy was the issue that I was somewhat crippled by my past life. It was not my fault, just like a desease, but I had to adjust my life around it. My sister is going through cancer treatment and we've talked about this a lot. It's hard remaking your self image, especially when you don't want to.

I will never understand all the arguments for and against the blood issue. It was so much easier to have the elders hand me a card, and "suggest" that I "make sure to sign it in front of them TONIGHT" and I would do that. Not much thinking involved. And I didn't think. Simple, complete.

Please be assured that I, and many others, and in all due respect, your family, have much fellow feeling for you - in spite of the fact that you are pretty.

Friend, you've thought about this blood thing a lot, huh? You and Frenchy will get along just fine.
Thank you for sharing and snuggle well tonight.

Friend

SevenofNine

You said:

Thank you for clarifying several of the Society's teachings. Your explanation made perfect sense to me but they'll never budge on the issue.

You need to cheer up a bit. have you carefully considered that June 15, 2000 Question to Readers article in The Watchtower?

Look at that inset box on page 30. It states,

If an medicine to be prescribed may be made of blood plasma, red of white cells, or platelets, ask: Has the medicine been made from one of the four primary blood components? If so, would you explain its makeup? How much of this blood-derived medicine might be administered, and in what way?

In light of those questions, let me ask you some questions (just rhetorical, you need not answer):

If the physician says, "This treatment contains 1 red cell" would you object to it? Would elders have a judicial case?

If the physician says, "This treatment contains 100 red cell" would you object to it? Would elders have a judicial case?

If the physician says, "This treatment contains 1000 red cell" would you object to it? Would elders have a judicial case?

If the physician says, "This treatment contains 10,000 red cell" would you object to it? Would elders have a judicial case?

And the list could go on and on.

Do you see my point? You feel that the Society will not budge on this issue of blood transfusion when, regardless of what they may say, that June 15, 2000 Questions from Readers is a huge budge! Right now if some local JW judiciary was formed to hear a case of misuse of blood they would have a monumental task confronting them in view of that June 15, 2000 article. Judicially that article practically ended disfellowshipping over conscientious acceptance of some form of blood transfusion.

If you are thinking this is the end of the "budging", don’t. The Society knows that for some time they have been receiving good, conscientious and scriptural reasons from various publishers regarding why they will accept blood transfusion if it becomes a medical necessity. The Society has not seen fit to rebuke or otherwise take adverse action against those publishers. Also for some time now the Society has refrained from endorsing disfellowshipping action when publishers have accepted some from of blood transfusion. In the precious few instances where this has taken place over the past 10 years or so, the circumstances involved far more than just accepting blood. Most often those circumstances involved advocating the acceptance of blood.

So, take heart, the Society is budging. And we have not seen the last of it either.

Friend

Seven

waiting, I wish my Mother and I were able to have discussions like this but since we can't it's comforting to have online friends like you. It's people like you and others here that makes the dark days easier to get through. I think there are
incidents in each of our pasts that have damaged us to a certain degree-some more than others. We have learned so much from one another but more important we are learning to trust in people again
and trust our own judgement.

7

Seven

Friend, Wasn't it the Who that sang, "...then I'll
get on my knees and pray. We won't get fooled again?" You did an adequate job of making your point. Here's mine: Any way they decide to spin this it will never compensate for those who are now members of the cemetary club. You say I need to cheer up. I have a positive attitude but can't help but feel for past victims of misinterpreted scripture.

Friend

SevenofNine

You said:

I have a positive attitude but can't help but feel for past victims of misinterpreted scripture.

Then we have something that is very important also very much in common.

Your
Friend

waiting

Dear Pretty 7,

Friend suggested you "cheer up" so here goes:

"I was driving along one day and I saw a hitchhiker with a sign saying Heaven. So I hit him."
Steven Wright

"I am never molested when travelling alone on a train. There are just a few words I have to say and I am immediately left along. They are "Are you a born-again Christian?"
Rita Rudner

Is it painfully obvious I got a new book of quotes? Well, I can't write poetry to you like Frenchy, so I might as well quote funny people!

Give yourself a hug - and take a walk in the sunshine. If it's raining - funny movies help a lot.

Frenchy

To all:
I have read with interest friend's post dealing with the Apostolic Decree. I find the reasoning there very compelling and logical. Sad to say, we are not a people of logic. Just yesterday at the District Convention the old, worn out cliche was once again pulled out of the hat and tossed at the crowd: "Guard against independent thingking. Don't trust human wisdom." So what do we have here? It doesn't matter what the scripture actually says, it's how it's meaning has been 'revealed' to those men who form the governing body of this society.

Case in point: transplants. What happened to all those arguments againsttransplants that were presented in the article dealing with that? Out the window they went when the 'new light' came in. What about that troublesome 'generation' of 1914. Do you realize just how many articles in the W and G and scores of other publications 'proved beyond doubt' just how 'scriptural' the belief was that those people would see the end? What happened to all those Biblical 'proofs', all of those carefully researched and 'revealed truths'? Out the window when 'the new light' came in.

The fact (and I mean that literally) of the matter is this: Forget about 'fractions' and 'primary components' and 'small amouts.' Jehovah does permit the eating of whole blood! (I hear the shocked gasps in the room!) Everytime you eat red meat you are eating whole blood. So Jehovah does not condemn the eating of blood per se. So, when we read the prohibition to: 'abstain from blood' we haveto stop and qualify this law. We have to ask: "What does he mean by this inasmuch as he has already given us permission to eat it when it is in the flesh of animals that we kill for food?" Each and every time that blood is mentioned in this regard it's the blood of animals that is meant.

How is the used of stored, human blood to sustain life disrespectful of the sanctity of life? I would think that it's just the opposite. Since when has the symbol become greater than that which it symbolizes?

The Society says that dialysis is okay (conscience matter, same thing). Why is it okay? 'Because some view it as an extension of their circulatory system...' Since when has right and wrong been determined by "some have felt...." ? The fact of the matter is that during dialysis your blood leaves your body and then it is re-infused into your body. You are being transfused with your own blood.

And what about this option which has been so graciously granted us by the Society as it appears on the DPA:

contemporaneous recovery and reinfusion (gasp! the fusion word!) of blood lost during or after surgery that does not involve storage or more than brief interruption of blood flow....

How long does something have to be before it's no longer considered 'brief'? The moment that flow stops it becomes stored blood in that equipment. When it's re-introduced into your body, you are getting a transfusion.

What is the Scriptural basis for these exceptions to what we have been told is a law from God prohibiting the transfusion of blood?

Seven

waiting, LOL!!! Reading those quotes was a great way to start the day. Thank you for spreading a little sunshine on this forum and be sure and throw in a few of the quotes from your new book now and then. Give yourself a hug from me too.
7

waiting

Dear 7,

"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them in the usual way. This happens all the time with computers and nobody thinks of complaining."
Jeff Raskin

"The person who agrees with everything you say either isn't listening or plans to sell you something."
Bud Holiday

"God in his bounty and generosity always creates more horses' asses than there are horses to attach to them."
Thomas Perry

Seven

Dear waiting, I'd ask for the name of the book but then it would spoil the surprise of discovering these quotes in your posts.

:)7

Blood Transfusion?

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