We Fall On The Thorns Of Reality: We Bleed!!

Some of you may know one of the best known doctrines JW's cling to--taking no blood transfusions. They carry around little cards that explain they are NOT under any circumstances to receive blood products of any kind. When I was around 10 years old, my mother's close friend died because she refused a blood transfusion after complications from giving birth. We weren't allowed to go to her funeral with my parents because it was deemed "too traumatic." My crazy uncle (who will get his own posts soon enough) recently was admitted to the hospital for fluid on the brain. My mother rushed there from two counties away--to make sure the doctors had his blood card. It's v-e-r-y important to JWs.

The doctrine is based on a couple of scriptures in both the Old & New Testament that declare blood as being sacred to God and that his people are not supposed to "eat" it. They defend it thusly: If you were told by the doctor not to drink alcohol, and then you insert it by IV in your veins, is that not the same thing? And I suppose it is the same thing.

But what most JW's don't know, is that doctrine has changed significantly within the past 10 years. In fact, if you really, really need a blood transfusion, you better go to Europe and have it--you won't get kicked out that way. Confused? Good. Here's what happened.

The most popular scripture comes from Leviticus 3:17, which says:

It is a statute to time indefinite for YOUR generations, in all YOUR dwelling places: YOU must not eat any fat or any blood at all.

Witnesses take this to mean no ingesting of blood. However, I have seen them scarf Big Macs after a day in the "field" bothering people at their homes. I confess that even I have scarfed a Big Mac. It was go-ood. The problem with the blood issue for JW's is that it's repeated in the New Testament, and thus cannot, for them, be tossed away like most of the Abrahamic law tends to be for modern day Xians. Parents were guilt tripped into denying their children life saving medical care by passages such as these:

They know that if they violate God's law on blood and the child dies in the process, they have endangered that child's opportunity for everlasting life in God's new world.

Even worse, the Brooklyn Lawyer Research Institute chose to propagate faulty scholarship by declaring in the early 1960s that it wasn't wrong to take blood because the Bible said so, but because:

It will probably shock you to learn that the blood of dead people is being transfused into the bodies of hospital patients, but reports from Russia and Spain show that it is exactly what is done there; and even in the United States of America experiments have been conducted with transfusion of cadaver blood!

EWWWW!! Of course, there is no source cited for that. We don't need it. It's the work of the Debbil, clearly. What's worse, you may be mainlining SIN:

Some of it may come from healthy persons; some from alcoholics and degenerates. Criminals in jail are given the opportunity to donate their blood. For example, the New York Times of April 6, 1961, reported: "Inmates of Sing Sing Prison at Ossining will give blood to the Red Cross today." A commendable act? Perhaps not as beneficial to their fellow men as the community is led to believe.

Because as it has been scientifically proven over and over again, the blood of a prisoner gives you a 30% higher chance of turning criminal yourself. And you know what else? Just in case you get any funny ideas about helping animals without souls, here's a 1964 sobering thought:

Would it be a violation of the Scriptures for a Christian to permit a veterinarian to give blood transfusions to a pet? By all means, to do so would be a violation of the Scriptures. To use blood for transfusion purposes, even in the case of an animal, would be improper.

Although the Bible makes no mention of pets surviving Armageddon in the New System with their owners, we'd best not take chances. Jesus may, in fact, command Fido to "come on out!!" You transfuse him, even against his puppy will, and you've screwed that up for him. How do you feel now, big man??

In 1982 it was determined that even having blood removed by leeches would be a violation against God, mainly because you've forcefed blood to the leech. You've damned it's soul, how dare you!!? Although who was still using leech treatment in 1982 is beyond me--I thought that went out with George Washington:

However, though leeches parasitically feed on blood in their natural state at present, it would not be proper for a Christian to permit leeches to draw his blood. (Proverbs 30:15) Even where this was urged for medical reasons and the leeches would later be disposed of, the use of leeches would involve deliberately feeding blood to these creatures. That would conflict with the Bible's indication that blood, being sacred and representing life, should be disposed of if it is removed from a body.

These policies devastated families, and directly resulted in hundreds upon hundreds of deaths. Nearly every JW knows somebody who died because they didn't have a blood transfusion. They may not know them well, but they know them. After decades of dying in hospitals, even where the hospital has taken the family to court to forcibly administer blood (the JW's love to brag about their stand in the face of the judicial system), the Society decided that there was a problem with its policy. Not that it had made a mistake, mind you. SCIENCE had changed. In 2000 (the year that Armageddon was supposed to hit, remember), the Society came out with a different stance on blood treatments that didn't involve "whole" blood products, but only a "fraction" of the products:

Such therapies are not transfusions of those primary components; they usually involve parts or fractions thereof. Should Christians accept these fractions in medical treatment? We cannot say. The Bible does not give details, so a Christian must make his own conscientious decision before God.

Basically, it's your call, Joe. I had an interesting conversation with my mother regarding this new policy. "It's just a fraction: an intsy-weentsy itty-bitty-part of the blood." She said this, no fooling. I said: "Mom, fractions can be any size. If I give you 9/10ths of the bag of blood, does that still cut the mustard?" We never talked about it again. "Fraction" apparently mentally equates with "smallness", and that's probably where most JW's stop thinking about this new and dramatically different doctrine.

Maybe there was "new light", and the Brooklyn Light Bulb Keepers relented. Har. Funny you should ask. We actually have Bulgaria, of all countries, to thank for the reversal in doctrine. Bulgaria banned JW's as an official religion because they disfellowship (excommunicate) followers who do not adhere to their blood policy. The JW's cried persecution and took their case to the European Court of Human Rights in 1994. It bit them in the ass. As a compromise to being recognized as an official religion, and by extension getting to keep their tax exempt status, the JW's had to draft a statement regarding blood that reads as follows:

In respect of the refusal of blood transfusion, the applicant association submits that while this is part of the religious doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses, its acceptance depends on the personal choice of the individual concerned. There are no religious sanctions for a Jehovah's Witness who chooses to accept blood transfusion. Therefore, the fact that the religious doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses is against blood transfusion cannot amount to a threat to "public health", every individual being free in his or her choice.

YES, motherfuckin' free will!! This is the European Commission of Human Rights Application No. 288626/95. Most JW's do not know about it. They probably think Bulgaria is some mystical Satanic land, anyway.

-- Virgil