SHould Jehovah's witnesess' be prosecuted?

Rolfe said:
Acts 15 v. 29 says "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things."
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The last sentence makes it sound more like advice than strict prohibition.
 
Skwinty said:
Yes, he has paid the price for his stupidity.
I nominate him for the Darwin Award.:boggled:
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I think it's a little harsh to be judging this kid as stupid. He's a kid for pete's sakes. He hadn't yet had the opportunity to go out into the world and learn that there's other things in the world than what his parents have allowed him to know about. I know many, many people who were fundamentalists as kids, but stopped being so soon after they got out from under their parents roof and were actually able to get access to information other than what had been spoon fed to them from birth.
 
Modified said:
The last sentence makes it sound more like advice than strict prohibition.
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I thought so too. And even though it does sling "sexual immorality" in as a makeweight (St. Paul was very hot on sexual immorality), it really does sound as if he's talking about food.

Of course it's impossible to abstain from blood in food unless you become vegetarian, which doesn't actually seem to be the suggestion. It's essentially about blood sausage and possibly improperly bled-out carcasses (cf. the point about strangled animals, which of course would not be bled out).

Rolfe.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
I think it's a little harsh to be judging this kid as stupid. He's a kid for pete's sakes.
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The sad bit is that he is a dead kid. I too had fundy parents and rebelled as early as 12, so I guess I am judging according to my own experience.
 
Azrael 5 said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/8690785.stm

The parents surely should face manslaughter charges at least. How do they get away with it?
EVen adults who refuse treatment on religious grounds,aren't they comitting assisted suicide of sorts(medical staff not treating them therefore helping them die?),which is illegal in most countries.
How in a modern world can this happen to a child? :mad:
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My impression is that the 15-year-old himself was refusing the transfusion.

Depending on the age of the child and legal jurisdiction's statute or precedent about the wishes of minors where their bodies are concerned, this may have overridden the parents' wishes anyway.
 
Rolfe said:
Acts 15 v. 29 says "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things."

Modified said:
The last sentence makes it sound more like advice than strict prohibition.
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The first sentence seems to say that it is something that is being commanded, not suggested, thus negating the "just a suggestion" tone of the second sentence.

This also reads to me that one is to abstain from the meat and blood of strangled animals, more so than blood in general. One would think that an all knowing and all powerful deity would have the ability to speak a bit more clearly and concisely, and not say things that are vague and ambiguous that are to be followed for all eternity. I guess omniscience isn't all it's cracked up to be.
 
Paul's text clearly states not to eat blood. JWs equate blood transfusion to 'eating blood' in that if you are unable to eat, what do they do? They feed you intravenously. So, intravenous = eating. I think it is a stretch, but they think it's pretty obvious.

The JW's that are 'forced' to take blood are absolved as it was not their choice, and I'm sure they Heave a sigh of relief that they got it both ways. If it IS their choice, depending on who they are and their standing in the congregation, and their repentance level after the fact, it would cause either:
1) nothing to happen,
2) a private reproof (Elders come to you privately and say "bad" and hit you on the nose with a newspaper),
3) a public reproof (same as private, but an announcement is made from the podium that you have been reproved (but no details), or
4) disfellowshipment ("You are dead to us!").

In my time as a JW, I was never in a blood situation, but would likely have refused, having read plenty of JW material that made blood transfusions useless and/or deadly. I don't know if that literature has changed in the last 20 years, apparently not.

Four years ago I bled out after a minor surgery, and had 6 units pumped into me to save my life. I am glad I saw the "Truth" (as JWs call it internally) was not so much, and eventually made it to vocal atheism in time.
 
shadron said:
No. See blood substitutesWP. There are hemoglobin replacements and perfluorocarbon based oxygen carriers, neither of which require red blood cells or similar structures.

It is well known that cephalopods, with copper-based oxygen transport, do not have cell-based transport, and it works well for their environment.
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It is my understanding from my hematologist that substitutes cannot be used in all cases. According to him there are situations in which only red blood cell replacement can save a life. He is also a teaching physician (professor). I assume he knows what he's talking about.

It is the contention of the cult that doctors are controlled by Satan who is telling them to claim blood is needed in any situation.

QUESTION THREE

Aren't there always alternatives to blood?

ANSWER

Very often there is. A patient with a high blood count (hemoglobin concentration) can sometimes tolerate large blood losses as long as the remaining blood is diluted with appropriate saline or other "balanced salt solution" so that the amount of circulating blood volume is still approximately the same. Of course, the diluted blood cannot carry oxygen as well as it did earlier. But once the hemoglobin concentration falls below 6 g/dl (severe anemia) the risk of organ injury or death from oxygen deprivation rises to the point that few physicians would ordinarily withhold blood.

For example, in one study of Witness surgical patients who needed but refused blood transfusion, over 60% of those with a hemoglobin concentration under 6 g/dl died (full data are given on one of my Web pages). By the way, efforts to make true blood substitutes that carry oxygen (salt solutions do not carry significant amounts of oxygen) are in progress. These substitutes are made from discarded human blood, and should be available in 5-10 years if all goes well.
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Source: Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood
 
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marplots said:
It falls under the 'guilty mind' rule. If you actually believe something is helpful, you are acting without malice. This is sometimes referred to in the 'plead insanity' type of defense, which is apt.
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Manslaughter doesn't have the same mens rea requirements as murder. You can be guilty of manslaughter without any malice. Involuntary manslaughter does not require any malicious intention. The kind that's most likely to apply in a case like this is criminally negligent manslaughter.

I'm not sure why no charges are being filed in this particular case--nor am I familiar with the specifics of this incident.

Ah--I just noticed that this incident happened in England. I'm not at all familiar with criminal law there, though I suspect it's very similar in principle.
 
Joe, thank you for the clarification.

I suspect that the kid refused treatment directly, so I don't think we were on the right track. The question then revolves around whether a 15-yo has the right to refuse treatment in England or whether the docs had a duty to treat despite that.

I suppose, if they did have a duty, then what you said about negligence would apply.
 
By the way, efforts to make true blood substitutes that carry oxygen (salt solutions do not carry significant amounts of oxygen) are in progress. These substitutes are made from discarded human blood, and should be available in 5-10 years if all goes well.
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I don't see why the JWs would accept soething made from "discarded human blood" if they won't take the human blood in the first place. The perfluorocarbon-based products are another matter.

Of course this sort of thing isn't appropriate in every case, but for straightforward acute traumatic haemorrhage I'd have thought they would help a lot.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Of course this sort of thing isn't appropriate in every case, but for straightforward acute traumatic haemorrhage I'd have thought they would help a lot.
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What would help,even more, would be the ditching of the superstitious prohibition
 
Actually I believe JWs are now allowed to store their own blood.

The intravenous = eating is spot on but JWs change their rules a lot. There's a good early pic of a whole group of the higher-ups sitting down to Christmas dinner before they decided they shouldn't celebrate it. Raymond Franz, former member of the governing body, lives in my neck of the woods and I've been to his house. Despite doubting and then leaving the religion, he is still religious (Christian), which I find strange.
 
Tacita said:
Despite doubting and then leaving the religion, he is still religious (Christian), which I find strange.
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Not really. I went from Catholic to Methodist briefly. Lots of people leave one denomination to go to another. Protestants especially.
 
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I think he means the people refusing blood transfusions, and dying, are thus removing themselves from the gene pool.
 
I'll just leave this here...
"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. . . . in his book Who Is Your Doctor and Why? Doctor Alonzo Jay Shadman says: "The blood in any person is in reality the person himself. It contains all the peculiarities of the individual from whence it comes. This includes hereditary taints, disease susceptibilities, poisons due to personal living, eating and drinking habits. . . . The poisons that produce the impulse to commit suicide, murder, or steal are in the blood." And Dr. Américo Valério, Brazilian doctor and surgeon for over forty years, agrees. "Moral insanity, sexual perversions, repression, inferiority complexes, petty crimes -- these often follow in the wake of blood transfusion," he says. Yet it is acknowledged in the public press that organizations whose blood supply is considered reliable obtain blood for transfusion from criminals who are known to have such characteristics." (The Watchtower, Sept. 15, 1961, p. 564)
 
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