Eating blood?
A hospital caring for a baby needing blood because anemia was costing its life, turned to the courts to gain permission to give the child blood as its mother refused to allow the transfer. Why? She's a Jehovah's Witness and blood transfusion "is against the religion". Read about it here. This a topical issue in the JW circles, jus as homosexuality is in ours. Check out these statements on the Watchtower's word on blood transfusion.
posted by Aiden at
2:09 pm
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6 Comments:
The Watchtower link is interesting- I don't have time to read through the whole thing, but it seems to list 'fractions' or derivatives of blood (plasma, hemoglobin) as substitutes and acceptable. To me the difference is minimal- like saying you can't eat fruit salad but you can eat bananas, apple,pineapples.
What I don't get is this: out of the 613 commandments oin the Old Testament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot), why choose this one to let children die over? I know a vet who has had dogs die because their owner is a Jehovah's Witness who refused to allow a transfusion. I'm not sure whether the dog was a conscientious JW, but this seems a bit extreme.
I don't want to turn this comment into a bashing session, so I'll try and turn this around to ourselves- as a Christian, how do your beliefs impact on how you view your body from a medical point of view-
-would you accept a transfusion?
-do you donate blood?
-would you donate your organs?
-would you accept a transplant organ?
There is a surprising amount of emotion attached to people's choices here, so fire away.
By
Peter le Roux, at 10/26/2005 03:47:00 pm
Q. What do you get if you cross a Jehova Witness and a Hell's Angel?
A. Someone who knocks on your door and tells YOU to 'F*** off'.
Sorry, had to post as anon, you never know if a Hell's Angels stumbles on this blogg
By
Anonymous, at 10/26/2005 04:30:00 pm
Dube, I think the issue then is where you draw the line- if we say that our longing for physical immortality is out of control, what level of medical care is 'acceptable'?
As an example- I had a friend pass away during the late stages of pregnancy. What made this so shocking to us was that she was young, with so much ahead of her. But go back 100 years and it was pretty common for a mother to die in childbirth. I don't think you are arguing that we should live in a world where we go back to that sort of situation. So where do we draw this line?
My personal feeling (which comes from my own life experience, including the majority of my life before I became a Christian) is that on the whole medical technology is a good thing. I do think that the way Pope John Paul II chose to not go on to life support was a good example of drawing the line between medical technology and not thirsting for physical immortality. Other than that very public example, I'm for medical technology.
As far as why this law is so sacred, this link http://watchtower.org/library/hb/ was an article discussing blood from a JW viewpoint. The basic stance is that the many Biblical references to blood show it to be sacred to God.
By
Peter le Roux, at 10/27/2005 05:43:00 am
Dube, I think that technology is morally neutral, progress encompasses other things that are maybe not so neutral. Consumerism is definitely a negative moral force- it's not good for people. I don't think you can equate that with technology automatically.
The reason I say technology is morally neutral is that most technologies allow us to make both good and bad moral choices with equal ease- you CAN go on the internet to look for porn or learn how to build a fertilizer bomb, but you can come here as well, or download a bible study. The technology of itself is not morally anything, it is what we make of it.
The particular example of medical technology I take to be a positive thing- purely because it's intent is to save lives.Many members of my family (and probably yours?) would not be alive if it were not for blood transfusions, organ transplants, chemotherapy etc.
Ok, let me be a bit bolder in my statement-
Dube, can you name one technology that on balance is negative, with no positive contribution to our moral status?
uoinc-a pig without a spellcheck
By
Peter le Roux, at 10/27/2005 06:26:00 pm
let's see-
Cars with big engines- I'm from the East Rand-how can you tell me a fast car is a bad thing?
BOTOX- from wikipedia: Currently, Botox® is finding enormous additional potential in several therapeutic areas including the treatment of migraine headaches, cervical dystonia (a neuromuscular disorder involving the head and neck), blepharospasm (involuntary contraction of the eye muscles), and severe primary axillary hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating). Other uses of botulinum toxin type A that are widely known but not approved by FDA include urinary incontinence, anal fissure, spastic disorders associated with injury or disease of the central nervous system including trauma, stroke, multiple sclerosis, or cerebral palsy and focal dystonias affecting the limbs, face, jaw, or vocal cords. Treatment and prevention of chronic headache and chronic musculoskeletal pain are emerging uses for botulinum toxin type A. In addition, there is evidence that Botox® may aid in weight loss by increasing the gastric emptying time.
Fastfood-not sure if this is a technology. standardisation of agriculture is, transport logisitics is, refrigeration is, fastfood might fall outside what I consider technology.
cellular phones- problematic as you discuss.
But I want to point out that I still think there is a difference between a technology and the moral choices we take around the technology.
To say that something has no moral position is not the same as saying it is good-I'm not saying that all technology is good (except i nthe case od medical tchnlogy as mentioned earlier_, just that it isn't automatically bad.
I suppose we could argue the list of all technology ever devised back and forth for days, but in the end all I'm trying to say is that I don't think a technlogy can have a predetermined moral contribution. technology can't be 'bad' or 'good' by itself. I think it's good to try technology on against our moral framework to see how it fits, and to reject some things if they don't fit for us.
word for the day:
kjelzhjb- line from a Queen song-
kjelzhjb has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me...
By
Peter le Roux, at 10/28/2005 01:48:00 pm
So Dube, does Elaine know of your quest to relinquish your cell phone? How's she going to be feeling when you're driving on a long trip with no form of contact?
I think you're all speaking out of your asses!
SBMMVS
By
Aiden, at 10/31/2005 08:31:00 am
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