You have changed your horse in mid race. LOL. First, you advertize that the WT is secretly consenting to blood transfusions, but now you concede that they are not and you say that it is an acknowledgement and not an authorization..
Fisherman, I don't understand your reply. I only posted the article, trying to find out what it was all about. Where did I say that the Watchtower is consenting to anyone having blood transfusions? You don't seem to have read my post carefully enough to grasp the point.
The news article made it clear that this is not a consent form, and that no authorization is required from the parent.
The form states that JW beliefs do not allow for a blood transfusion.
You seem to be mixing up two seperate things.
I was talking mainly about the JW judicial consequences (or lack thereof) after the event, especially considering the Watchtower's stance on rape. The rest you can discuss with Marvin.
The parent in question obviously does not want their child to be in a life-or-death situation.
You may presume that the average JW would not want the child to have a blood transfusion even if their life is in danger, because of their religious belief that God would prefer that a life be lost rather than for someone to take in blood..
A victim does not want to be raped.
Let me try to be clearer, then:
So why would they not fight to take the child away from the hospital that is going to administer the blood transfusion, if taking in blood is so important to Jehovah?
Why would they acknowledge a transfusion may happen whilst at the hospital, then let a transfusion happen if, as the Watchtower would assume (according to the parents personal beliefs), they would rather die or fight to the death or be imprisoned than take in a transfusion themselves? Because they had no choice? Neither did the rape victim. They still had to resist, even to the point of death.
The fact that parents are signing these forms, and then letting the children be given a transfusion without putting up a fight, as it were, indicates to me that the parents either view submission to the authorities as more important than what God wants, or they do not believe that God wants a child to die rather than take in blood.
It's just my thoughts on how all of this relates to the after-effect of being raped and disfellowshipped for not putting up enough of a fight, the seeming injustice of it, and you haven't even responded, just done a lazy cut out of my post.
To reiterate: With this document, parents can allow someone to force their child, to break God's Law by taking in blood (as the Watchtowers claims), and then have no judicial commitee or anything, because they had a signed document from the HLC.
The hospital would always bear the blame, because the parents in a way had no choice, except for breaking the law and running away with the child, possibly endangering the childs life. But since when has endangering a life stopped JW's from obeying God's Law?). In the case of a rapist violating someone, the victim has at times taken the blame. Despite clearly having no choice, not even to physically flee.
Women (and men) have been taught by the Watchtower for decades that they should risk death, when faced with being raped, rather than just accept it and acknowledge that the rapist can do what they want. They were to fight to the bitter end.
Obedience to God was viewed as more important than the victims safety or life (even their family's safety depending on the situation).
There is no question that the victim did not consent to being raped.
But if they were not seen to have put up enough of a fight, they could be disfellowshipped or at least told that they needed to repent.. merely for acknowledging that the rapist had power over him/her and they could do nothing about it, so they did not try to resist.
The victim did not consent. They could not stop it. So they acknowledged it was going to happen and let it happen. What is the difference between that and this situation with parents signing acknowledgement forms with the help of the HLC (usually elders, I believe.)
Parents could sign one of these forms, acknowledging that their child may be 'violated' by a blood transfusion. Then they let it happen and don't have to face a judicial committee.
Win-win. Good for them. Seems like a double standard for the HLC people to be allowed to work on these forms and arrange them with hospitals. What happened to the old fight-Satan's-system-to-the-death mentality?...
And the fact that these have been used by various hospitals indicates that this has happened quite a number of times.
It seems to be a compromise, so that things would not have to get 'ugly and messy' for the JW's, and so the child would receive the blood that the hospital wanted to force on them against the parents wishes.
Some JW's in the past would have fled the country, or fought to the death, rather than break God's Law.
That is when I suggested that many JW parents who use this may be relieved that their child will not have to lose their life, because they do not privately hold the belief that it is better to die than to take blood into the body.
I don't know whether the Watchtower consented to all this or not, discuss that with Marvin, it's his article.. They did allow the HLC to make these arrangements though, or are you suggesting that only certain elders and the parents knew of it?
