If I'd thought of it I'd have scanned it, and posted it here but as I wasn't actually that engrossed in the latest Wt developments... I didn't bother. All the fading Dubs that post should have a copy of it anyway, so one of them can post it and reveal which part of part of part of blood is a conscience matter. I do recall that anti-venom is a matter of conscience.
scotsman
JoinedPosts by scotsman
-
29
New WT study article on blood
by scotsman inflicking through what seems to be the latest watchtower i noticed there's an entire article on what blood products witnesses can/not take.
my brother was at a recent hospital liaison meeting and said that the rank & file seem to find it all rather confusing.
the article does a big bit on blood extract products being a conscience matter, and then includes the 'you must not stumble your brother' principle.
-
-
-
29
New WT study article on blood
by scotsman inflicking through what seems to be the latest watchtower i noticed there's an entire article on what blood products witnesses can/not take.
my brother was at a recent hospital liaison meeting and said that the rank & file seem to find it all rather confusing.
the article does a big bit on blood extract products being a conscience matter, and then includes the 'you must not stumble your brother' principle.
-
-
scotsman
Flicking through what seems to be the latest Watchtower I noticed there's an entire article on what blood products Witnesses can/not take. My brother was at a recent Hospital Liaison meeting and said that the rank & file seem to find it all rather confusing. The article does a big bit on blood extract products being a conscience matter, and then includes the 'you must not stumble your brother' principle. ( I never could get my head round this particular principle as it seemed to allow oversensitive/self righteous extremists to rule the day.)
It all now sounds rather muddy to me.
-
17
Marrying a non-believer?
by sparky79 ini am currently dating a jehovas-witness, and have been for a while.
we have talked about marriage, but a lot of what i hear and read is that for her to marry a non-believer is frowned upon by others in the religion.
i am a non-believer of any religion.
-
-
scotsman
Like I said, I have nothing against religion at all. Please could some people offer me advice as to her situation with her family and the elders of her church? Is this practice frowned upon?
If she hasn't explained the implications of her dating a nonJW, and you don't know if it's frowned upon, you sure have communication troubles. I'd also suggest that you listen to yourself as well as your friends. If you have doubts about your girlfriends motives, don't think about marrying her.
-
19
Son came home last night with a new "Faux-hawk" haircut - I LOVE IT
by seeitallclearlynow inthat's right - he's been needing a haircut and laughingly said as we parted ways to go to our respective salons, "mom, we seem to basically have the same hairstyle right now.
" lol!
it was true - we both needed a new "do".
-
-
scotsman
Also known as the Hoxton Fin.
-
17
For those with family in the org...
by kibizzle in...have they justified the un involvement to you by saying that the wts was only getting information for their magazines, that they weren't "aiding" them in their political work, so the involvement was ok?.
imo, there is no justification for the un invovement.
how do you reason with your family when they defend the actions of the wts?
-
-
scotsman
When I showed my mum the UN letter she agreed that it would shock some Witnesses to learn of their NGO involvement. She explains it away with the 'imperfect men' arguement, and that she still feels the Watchtower explains the truth of the Bible regardless of what the corporation does. She and my brother are not interested in examining the flaws of the organisation.
Personally, I think it's futile trying to open their eyes. Most of the exWitnesses I know had their own personal epiphany that lead them out of the organisation, and unless someone already has doubts I think the UN/child protection/607 issues have no effect. They might see it one day, but if they do it'll have to be for themselves, not because I've forced them to.
-
5
Offered a tract for the first time.
by scotsman inyesterday, as i was standing at the bus stop i got offered a jw tract by an older witness woman.
the tract was the dark one with a figure backlight by - the earth?
- think it was called will mankind survive?
-
-
scotsman
Yesterday, as I was standing at the bus stop I got offered a JW tract by an older Witness woman. The tract was the dark one with a figure backlight by - the earth? - think it was called Will Mankind Survive? or something. I was completely taken by surprise and half laughed and said I didn't think I'd be interested while a million thoughts were shooting through my head - do I tell her I was a Witness, that I'm gay or bring up the UN. She was quicker than me, however, and immediately walked off without trying to counteract my 'conversation stopper'.
I watched her walk up the road, a woman in her early sixities clutching her small plastic folder of leaflets and I felt really sad. I felt sad for my Mum and brother who do the same work and have people continually rejecting them yet think they are doing something meaningful. And watching at her street witnessing it struck me how non-urgent it seemed. Those pathetic leaflets don't convey the immediacy of Armageddon. If she'd come round the corner with a placard, megaphone or sandwich board I'd have really believed that she thought it was the time of the end.
5 minutes later a pudgy teenager in a suit carrying a conveniently watchtower sized briefcase passed me, maybe there was a service arrangement being held nearby, and I had a brief 'Sliding Doors' moment where I wondered about what could have been my life today. Thank fcuk it's worked out the way it has!
-
6
What stories did you read to your kids, were read to you?
by azaria ini have fond memories of reading to my kids each night.
i have a photo at my desk of my son, then 7yrs old, reading to his sister, 3yrs.
in her bed.
-
-
scotsman
My parents read Dr Seuss and Kipling's Just So Stories to me, while my Gran made up stories about a fish called Tammy Troot. I've given the same books to my nephews/niece and made up similar Tammy Troot ones. But they're not as good as my Gran's stories.
-
22
Astronomy: Three Dates: A Young Witness
by Duncan inso, taking those title elements in reverse order: the young witness is me ?
this story goes back to the early sixties.
the three dates are: february 1986, august 11th 1999, and june 8th 2004. it's the fact that the last of those dates is , after all these years, finally nearly here that made me think of writing this post.
-
-
scotsman
Well written Duncan.
CF, strangely enough I was on the Aegean on my way to Naxos for the '99 eclipse. We had the lense from a welder's mask that made us very popular.
-
5
If you had an accident................
by Gadget inif you had an accident today and were in hospital unconscious, would your jw family members consent to you having a blood transfusion?
even if they were aware that you no longer believe and are not bound by the rules anymore would their conscience not allow them to grant the appropriate permissions and so make you take the risks of not accepting treatment?
-
-
scotsman
I've asked and been told they'd respect my views, just as I'd respect theirs.
-
12
TV channel defends plan to show an abortion in full
by ignored_one inhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/05/nabor05.xml
channel 4 defends plan to screen an abortion .
by hugh davies .
-
-
scotsman
an article by the progamme maker
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1185340,00.html
My abortion and my baby
Julia Black had a termination at 21, and never questioned her pro-choice beliefs ... until she fell pregnant at 34. In this frank dispatch from both sides of the debate, she asks if it is possible to disentangle facts from emotions
Sunday April 4, 2004
The Observer Ever since I can remember, I have been pro-choice. When I was five years old my father set up Marie Stopes International, a charity that has grown into one of Britain's largest abortion providers and a leading international reproductive rights agency. So I grew up hearing and believing the mantra, a woman's right to choose.When I became pregnant at 34, my beliefs started to come under attack for the first time. As my pregnancy progressed, I began to question my views on abortion. At my first antenatal check-up I was asked if this was my first pregnancy. My answer was: 'No, I've had an abortion.' But the emotions and feelings surrounding my two pregnancies couldn't have been more different.
I found out I was pregnant at 21. I remember the phone call from my GP telling me the test was positive. I immediately burst into tears. I had ignored all the signs; the late period, the fuller breasts, the nausea. A baby wasn't part of my game plan. That phone call pricked my bubble of denial and I had to make a decision. What was I going to do?
I told my parents, and they asked whether I wanted to have the baby. I said no. I wasn't ready for a family. I had just left university and was about to start my career. Thanks to the generation before me who fought for the 1967 Abortion Act, I had a get-out clause. I took control of my fertility and had an abortion.
With my life back on track it was 13 more years before I finally felt ready to start a family. So this time round those tell-tale signs of a pregnancy were greeted with joy. I was feeling sick - hooray! When I felt my baby kick for the first time at 16 weeks it was amazing. Here I was having a relationship with something living inside me, and I began to wonder if I could actually look at the facts of abortion and still be pro-choice.
In the past I had always dismissed the anti-abortion movement as extremists. But I could no longer do that. I needed to listen to what they had to say because, if I had sworn allegiance to the pro-choice movement without question, then perhaps others had too. If this was the case, one of my basic human rights - the right to control my own fertility - had precarious foundations.
I decided to make a film about my journey and pitched the idea to Channel 4. As I began my research I discovered many in the anti-abortion movement accused the media and pro-choicers of collaborating in a cover-up. They believe abortion can exist as a legitimate medical procedure only because the public doesn't know the truth. They say the media have censored their message and the abortion providers remain silent about the physical reality of what they do.
I met people from both sides and what surprised me was how much language they shared. I would interview someone opposed to abortion one day and a doctor who performs abortions the next, and when I stripped away their moral views they shared many beliefs. They both marvelled at the first few cells that eventually form a human being and there was no difference in their respect for the foetus or their view about the unpalatable nature of abortion. This presented me with a problem: how could I admit abortion destroys a life, or a potential life, and still be pro-choice?
Now that I had become two bodies in one, I began to feel pulled in two directions. As my pregnancy entered the third trimester I found it increasingly difficult to disassociate abortion per se with my now well-developed baby. Hearing the doctor's description of performing a late abortion was very difficult. I reread the statistics to put things in perspective. In Britain every year 180,000 abortions take place, 87 per cent of them in the first 12 weeks. Less than 1 per cent occur after 21 weeks. Statistics don't, of course, deal with emotions. So I continued to struggle with the idea of how a woman could abort her baby in the later stages.
I went back to the transcript of my interview with the doctor. 'If a woman comes to me at between 20 and 24 weeks pregnant and she wants a termination of pregnancy she has had a long time to think about that.' The more I thought about having to abort my foetus in the late stages, for whatever reason, I realised how hard, if not impossible, it would be to make that decision. Any woman faced with that reality would live with her decision for the rest of her life.
I then became angry that the pro-life campaigners were using images of late-aborted foetuses. How could I, or anyone else, make a moral judgment about whether a late abortion is right or wrong without knowing the circumstances that led to that woman ending her pregnancy? The goal to isolate the foetus and make you see it as a baby is easily achieved with these images, but doing so makes us lose sight of the woman. I had easily been swept along by the emotive power of the images so no wonder the anti-abortion movement is keen for them to be shown.
I decided to include images of 10-, 11- and 21-week-old aborted foetuses in my film because, however shocking, repulsive and confrontational they are, they represent the reality. Aborted foetuses from 10 weeks on look like tiny babies. Rationally, we know abortion ends the life of a potential human being, but why when we see what they look like are we so shocked? The pro-choice movement must know how difficult it is to fight back against the powerful image of what looks like a dead baby. So they have not engaged with these shock tactics.
As a result, the debate in this country has become lazy. It remains as polarised today as it was in 1967, but the reality of abortion has changed. One in three women will now have an abortion during her lifetime but, more than three decades after it was made legal, abortion is still taboo. The legislation in its time was very progressive, but today it seems out of date. When I became pregnant at 21, the 1967 Act stated that to end my pregnancy I had to prove to two doctors that it presented a threat to my physical or mental health, posed a risk to my life, or that my foetus had serious abnormalities. Only if the doctors agreed could I have an abortion. The law remains the same today.
People who know me will be surprised to hear I had an abortion. In the past it has not been something I have talked about openly. You just don't. But abortion is something that stays with you, most often as a secret, and it is not something you forget. Coming out about my abortion to a television audience was something I never thought I would do.
After giving birth to my daughter I regained perspective on why it was important to make this film. I didn't want her, or her friends, years down the line to still have to pretend to plead insanity to end an unwanted pregnancy, or to feel it is something they couldn't talk about. I wanted to kick-start the debate and make society re-examine its views on abortion. Could we decide once and for all whether abortion in Britain should become a woman's right or, if the truth about abortion really was too horrific, allow it to continue?
I took more than a year to make this film, and it has been a personal and very challenging journey. I met people on both sides of the debate who believed that the details of abortion should now be shown. Staff at Marie Stopes International agreed to facilitate this programme because they, like other abortion providers I talked to, believed that the secrecy around abortion had to be lifted.
The procedure I filmed was the manual vacuum aspiration method, which sucks the foetal parts into a syringe. It is the safest technique for women with pregnancies under 12 weeks. The woman who agreed to let me film her abortion was four weeks pregnant. She chose a local anaesthetic: she was awake and talking to the doctor from start to finish, a little less than three minutes.
I chatted to the woman before her abortion and she said we all wished this wasn't something that existed, but sometimes we found ourselves in a situation where it was necessary. Her view summed up where I found myself. For the first time in 34 years I had actually listened to a side of the debate I had previously chosen to ignore, and along the way I felt challenged, confused, angry and sad.
I was impressed by the sincerity and conviction of the anti-abortion people I talked to. Over the past three decades the pro-choice movement in this country has lost its passion. My generation does not remember life before the 1967 Act: the desperation of having to continue an unwanted pregnancy, or the injuries and deaths associated with back-street abortions. So perhaps there is nothing to feel passionately about?
After making my film I disagree. The foetus has been hijacked by the anti-abortion groups, forcing the pro-choice movement into defending the woman's right to choose. As someone who was, and still is, pro-choice, I too want to engage with the foetus over abortion.
This is a difficult place for me to be right now, and I challenge the pro-choice movement to help me and others resolve the emotional contradiction that surrounds abortion when you look at the facts.