A basis for taking legal action against the Watchtower Society's Blood Transfusion Policy.
http://ajwrb.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/blood-misrepresented-2005-kerry-louderback-wood-1.pdf
How to Sue the WT
by Lee Elder 25 Replies latest watchtower medical
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Simon
That sound more like "how to throw money away on legal fees".
However wrong we believe the blood policy to be, it's not always a clear cut medical benefit with zero risk. There are enough "tainted blood" scandals that make claims that blood can be a risk justified as a belief.
But regardless, their primary objection is religious and no court is going to overstep that boundary IMO unless there is some unusual and special situation involved.
People die because of belief in vaccinations being dangerous or because they think homeopathy is medicine. You can't legislate against people's choices especially when it's one that you chose to follow or not.
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Lee Elder
You need to read the article Simon. It has nothing to do with "belief".
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Simon
Is it enough "nothing" for the government to try and fight every religion in the US about it?
Because if you try to challenge one of them on their faith, you end up challenging them all.
Who's going to do it and what's in it for them?
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Giordano
This was an interesting decision:
The Unification church argued that, despite the revelation of the church’s fraud, the recruits condoned the misrepresentation by becoming members.19 The California Supreme Court disagreed as it considered the indoctrination process of coercive persuasion to have rendered the recruits incapable of making a contrary decision.20
The JW's actively engage in coercive behavior when it comes to their ban on blood. We all know that if a person needs a life saving blood transfusion and doesn't refuse...... they will pay a serious penalty.
Their fear of losing their religious standing within the JW community and being shunned, not being resurrected/living forever on a paradise earth is a major reason they are refusing blood to this end their indoctrination makes them incapable of making a contrary decision.
Visits by the HLC to a sick or dying member to specifically warn them not to accept blood is proof that they have been subjected to coercion.
Coercion is a criminal offense. It is considered a crime of Duress
The courts can adjust to changing times re so called dangerous religious beliefs.
The bible clearly states that stoning someone to death for various reasons is a religious belief. Burning a witch to death is a religious belief. Holding and abusing slaves is a religious belief. The list goes on and on. Proof positive that not all religious beliefs are untouchable.
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Lee Elder
@Giordano - you are correct. The issue is not the religious belief. Religions can believe whatever they want to believe. They don't, however, have Carte Blanche to misrepresent scientists, risks, etc. They also have a responsibility to help adherents understand their policy.
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Giordano
I think their blood doctrine will start going the way child sexual abuse is going. The stories involved need to be told. The public is getting more and more aware about pedophiles now they need to understand that 1,000's of JW's have died before their time and thousands could have gone on to live there full life. with a blood transfusion.
When Jim Jones ordered his followers to drink poison many at gun point, the world learned about it the next day. Pictures of the dead...entire families, the small children laying in those fields.
It was a shock to everyone who viewed those images. Over nine hundred people died including over 300 children.
The problem with exposing the ban on blood is that death doesn't happen in a field in the open. It takes place in private places like hospital rooms, operating rooms, their personal bedrooms. And what is reported is not that the lack of a blood transfusion killed them it's that the trauma, cancer, and tons of other illnesses and accidents is ........ the cause of death.
Sometimes the results of not getting a blood transfusion can show up months later. The death toll each year can only be guessed at with millions of JW's even if we limited it to the Jonestown numbers on an annual basis over 73 years that could well be 73,000 people.
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MeanMrMustard
Coercion is a criminal offense. It is considered a crime of Duress
This is awesome. It’s all tied up then. I’m sure we’ll see tons of lawsuits now. Strange how it was staring us in the face all this time.
Plus, when my wife says, “You stop smoking those cigars or else I will divorce you”, I can come back and tell her she just committed a crime.
The courts can adjust to changing times re so called dangerous religious beliefs.
Who gets to decide what is a dangerous belief? Ahh, no matter. I’m sure the judges are pure of heart.
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_Morpheus
Lee, out of curiosity, what standing would someone need to have to use that information to sue? Is there a particular set of circumstances necessary?
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Simon
I know many here will believe that the WTS is the worst group to ever exist but in reality the Moonies are much further along in the spectrum of 'cult' than the WTS has ever been. Just because some ruling was made about some particular instance in their history doesn't make it a precedent that applies in all cases for all religions.
You could claim that Catholicism and Judaism and lots of other -isms all coerce their members and that's true, but it's also the nature of religious belief - convincing someone that something fantastical is true.
If you want to have freedoms, you have to allow people to make bad choices and some of that is not doing due diligence before joining a group or, if you are a parent, not checking that what someone is telling you about how to provide the best welfare and medical treatment for your child is sound or not.
Not everything can be legislated and sued over and I'm yet to hear some compelling reason of why someone with enough money and political power is going to take on the established religions and what they would realistically achieve.