BLOOD -- WTS Questions and Sound Answers 2

by Marvin Shilmer 4 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  Marvin Shilmer

  BLOOD -- WTS Questions and Sound Answers 2

  *** w69 6/1 326-7 Godly Respect for Life and Blood ***

  
  "Some persons may reason that getting a blood transfusion is not actually "eating." But is it not true that when a patient is unable to eat through his mouth, doctors often feed him by the same method in which a blood transfusion is administered? Examine the scriptures carefully and notice that they tell us to ‘keep free from blood’ and to ‘abstain from blood.’ (Acts 15:20, 29) What does this mean? If a doctor were to tell you to abstain from alcohol, would that mean simply that you should not take it through your mouth but that you could transfuse it directly into your veins? Of course not! So, too, abstaining from blood means not taking it into our bodies at all.

  *** g84 7/8 14 Does Refusing Medical Treatment Mean Refusing Life? ***

  
  "In response, Dr. Macklin said: "We may believe very strongly this man is making a mistake. But Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that to be transfused is to ‘eat blood’ and that eating blood [may] result in eternal damnation.""

  Does transfusing blood equate with eating blood? Answering this question presents a conundrum for the WTS because of what it teaches about human tissue transplantation. This answer also demonstrates the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses does not believe its own reasoning that transfusing blood equates with eating blood.

  The WTS teaches that human tissue transplantation is not necessarily cannibalism because transplanting is not food consumption.(1) So the WTS does not equate transplantation with eating. However, the WTS also teaches that blood transfusion is a tissue transplant.(2)

  So if members of the Governing Body really believed themselves that blood transfusion equates with eating blood then they would also have to believe that transplantation of human tissue is cannibalism. Since the WTS does not condemn human tissue transplantation as cannibalism then we know by its own teaching that the WTS does not wholeheartedly believe that blood transfusion equates with eating blood.

  If Governing Body members seriously believed that transplantation of blood were eating blood then they would also teach that transplantation of any other human organ is cannibalism. So we see embodied in the WTS' own teaching a confession that they do not believe their own reasoning that blood transfusion equates with eating blood.

  Marvin Shilmer

  References:

  1. *** w80 3/15 31 Questions from Readers ***
  "Christians today may feel that the Bible does not definitely rule out medical transplants of human organs. They may reason that in some cases the human material is not expected to become a permanent part of the recipient’s body. Body cells are said to be replaced about every seven years, and this would be true of any human body parts that would be transplanted. It may be argued, too, that organ transplants are different from cannibalism since the "donor" is not killed to supply food. In some cases persons nearing death actually have willed body parts to be used for transplants."

  2. *** hb 8 Blood Transfusions-How Safe? ***
  "When doctors transplant a heart, a liver, or another organ, the recipient’s immune system may sense the foreign tissue and reject it. Yet, a transfusion is a tissue transplant."
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  shadow

  Good points that are usually so obscure that they escape the notice of most JW's.

  It seems to me that the WT does not seem to be entirely opposed to cannibalism.

  Another line of 'reasoning' in that same article:

  __________________________________________________________________________________________

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  w80 3/15 p. 31 Questions from Readers ***

  While the Bible specifically forbids consuming blood, there is no Biblical command pointedly forbidding the taking in of other human tissue.

  ____________________________________________________________________________________________

  Of course to be a cannibal according to WT policy would not be very easy.

  You could not eat the body of a person you found dead because that would be eating unbled meat.

  Maybe if extremely fortunate the WT cannibal could come across someone that died in such a way that they bled out incidentally.

  Killing someone and then properly bleeding the body would make you a murderer.

  It might be allowable if someone else did the killing and bleeding (sort of like leaving donating blood and cutting it up sufficiently to others, eh?)

  So this position of WT saying that cannibalism is not scripturally condemned seems to be an untenable justification for organ transplants in any practical sense.
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  Sam Beli

  bttt
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  garybuss

  
  
  It's good for me to see the blood topic being discussed. Thanks for the posting.
  
  We know the Jewish tribal dietary restrictions are the governing laws the Jehovah's Witness people are applying to medical treatment and not applying to their diets almost at all. Witnesses have no problem eating meat that is not properly bled and THAT was the subject of the dietary laws as well as eating pork and mixing foods and eating scavenger type animals.
  
  I have seen Witness people eat steaks that were dripping blood before they were cooked without blinking an eye.
  
  The Watchtower Corporation has taken the dietary law and applied it exclusively to medical treatment while not applying it to their diets and they do it with ease and impunity.
  
  It seems to me that their real pay off for taking this stand is identity. It's kind of an expensive advertising gimmick but that's what it is. Makes me think if the title of a book they wrote years ago, "What Has Religion Done For Mankind?".
  
  
  
  
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  cyber-sista

  Thanks marvin--good points...I am saving this one