No Blood Transfusions?
Hearing on wrongful death held
By CP
Wed, May 25, 2005
CALGARY -- A hearing began yesterday to determine whether the Jehovah's Witness religious order should be brought to trial in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a man who blames the church for his daughter's death.
Lawrence Hughes filed a $1-million lawsuit last August against the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Canada, Edmonton's Cross Cancer Institute and several doctors and Jehovah's Witnesses.
In his claim, Hughes says the Jehovah's Witness church's policy against blood transfusions prompted the death of his daughter, Bethany Hughes, from acute myeloid leukemia on Sept. 5, 2002.
The Watch Tower Society subsequently filed a motion to strike down the claim made by Hughes.
Ontario lawyer David Gnam, representing the Watch Tower Society, said outside court Hughes's dispute with the church is not a matter for the courts.
"How is it possible to prove that anything caused Bethany to die other than her disease?" said Gnam. "Everything that's been alleged doesn't amount to something for which you can be sued."
A former Jehovah's Witness, Hughes originally blamed both the church and his wife, Arliss Hughes, for allowing their daughter Bethany, a devout Jehovah's Witness, to refuse blood transfusions to help treat her leukemia.
But he removed his estranged wife as a
defendant in the lawsuit yesterday, saying she is also a victim.
Bethany
died less than six months after she underwent a series of blood
transfusions against her wishes after Alberta Child Services assumed
custody of her when she refused conventional treatment for the disease.
Religious beliefs waive vaccinations for students
EXEMPTIONS ARE MADE ON A CASE-BY CASE BASIS.
By WILL PAFFORD
Alligator Contributing Writer
UF may say students need the needles, but exceptions can be made for those who answer to a higher authority.
Before attending UF, all students are required to show they have received measles, rubella, Hepatitis B and meningitis vaccines.
The exception is when a student is granted a religious exemption.
Diane Pecora, a nurse specialist for UF student immunizations at the Student Health Care Center, has talked with many of the students who have requested religious exemptions.
"Exemptions are case-by-case," Pecora said. "In the past, students have actually stated they are 'the governor of their [bodies]' and therefore decline vaccines, or they are 'chemical free' and wish to remain so."
However, throughout the major religions, it is difficult to find a group that opposes or forbids vaccinations.
Historically, the Christian Scientist faith has been controversial because of cases in which parents would deny medical treatment for their children, instead relying on faith-based healing through prayer.
"There's nothing mandated by the church that says you cannot have immunizations," said Rob Vanderlike, spokesman for First Church of Christ, Scientist in Ocala. "Each Christian Scientist would handle that differently based on their different beliefs."
One religion that does forbid certain medicines based on beliefs is the Jehovah's Witnesses faith.
Many vaccines are made by using animal cells to grow viruses, and this process has had complications within the Jehovah's Witnesses' belief system.
"The Bible says not to take blood," said the Rev. Larry Clark of Kingdom Hall-Jehovah's Witness. "Some medicines are derived directly from blood."
Clark said he was immunized as a child and that his children are immunized.
The request for religious exemptions from immunizations by students is a personal matter for each student.
However, these choices can put the student body at higher risk.
If students were to travel to an undeveloped country and they had not been immunized, they could come back with the measles or rubella virus, Pecora said.
Religion Today
By RICHARD N. OSTLING , 01.26.2006,
12:00 PM
Associated Press
Jehovah's Witnesses are renowned
for teaching that Jesus is not God and that the world as we know it will soon
end. But another unusual belief causes even more entanglements - namely, that
God forbids blood transfusions even when patients' lives are at stake.
The doctrine's importance will be underscored next week as elders who lead more
than 98,000 congregations worldwide recite a new five-page blood directive from
headquarters.
The tightly disciplined sect believes the Bible forbids transfusions, though
specifics have gradually been eased over the years. Raymond Franz, a defector
from the all-powerful Governing Body that sets policies for the faith, thinks
leaders hesitate to go further for fear that total elimination of the ban would
expose the organization to millions of dollars in legal liability over past
medical cases.
The Witnesses have opposed transfusions of whole blood since 1945. A later
pronouncement also barred transfusions of blood's "primary components," meaning
red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma.
An announcement in 2000 in the official Watchtower magazine, however, said that
because of ambiguity in the Bible, individuals are free to decide about
therapies using the biological compounds that make up those four blood
components, such as gamma globulin and clotting factors that counteract
hemophilia.
Next week's directive could create confusion about these compounds, known as
blood "fractions."
Without noting the 2000 change, the new directive tells parents to consider
this: "Can any doctor or hospital give complete assurance that blood or blood
fractions will not be used in treatment of a minor?"
Aside from the new directive, a footnote in the Witnesses' standard brochure,
"How Can Blood Save Your Life?," mentions the 2000 article on fractions - but
then omits its contents.
By coincidence, next week's directive follows some heavy criticism of the blood
transfusion policy from attorney Kerry Louderback-Wood of Fort Myers, Fla.,
writing in the Journal of Church and State, published by Baylor University.
Louderback-Wood, who was raised a Witness but now has no religious affiliation,
accuses her former faith of giving "inaccurate and possibly dishonest arguments"
to believers facing crucial medical decisions.
Louderback-Wood complains that many Witnesses and physicians aren't given clear
instruction about their faith's blood transfusion policy, particularly on the
subject of fractions.
She's no disinterested bystander. The lawyer says her mother died from severe
anemia in 2004 because local elders didn't realize hemoglobin is permitted.
Louderback-wood learned that hemoglobin was allowed from the Web site of
Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood, which was founded in 1997 by
dissenting local elders, eight of whom served on Hospital Liaison Committees
that advise Witnesses and physicians.
The founder of Associated Jehovah's Witnesses, speaking on condition of
anonymity to protect his standing in a faith that does not tolerate dissent,
says liaison committee members know about the revised teachings, but most
Witnesses automatically refuse all forms of blood without consulting the
committees. Physicians are often ill-informed about Witness beliefs, he says.
Louderback-Wood thinks the faith is subject to legal liability for misinforming
adherents, which to her knowledge is an untested theory in U.S. courts. Related
issues arise in a pending lawsuit in Calgary, Alberta, however, over the alleged
"wrongful death" of teenage leukemia patient Bethany Hughes.
Witnesses headquarters refused an Associated Press request to interview an
expert on blood beliefs. Instead, General Counsel Philip Brumley issued a
prepared statement rejecting Louderback-Wood's "analysis and conclusions" in
general.
"Any argument challenging the validity of this religious belief inappropriately
trespasses into profoundly theological and doctrinal matters," Brumley stated.
The Watchtower's 1945 ban said "all worshippers of Jehovah who seek eternal life
in his new world" must obey. Such edicts are regarded as divine law, since the
Governing Body uniquely directs true believers. Violators risk ostracism by
family and friends.
A subsequent Watchtower pronouncement forbade storage of a patient's own blood
for later transfusion. In all, Associated Jehovah's Witnesses lists 20 shifts
and refinements in blood-related rules over the years.
At the core of their blood beliefs, Witnesses cite Acts 15:29, where Jesus'
apostles agreed that Gentile converts should "keep abstaining from things
sacrificed to idols and from blood." The Witnesses also cite passages in Genesis
and Leviticus.
Judaism and Christianity have always understood these scriptures to ban
blood-eating for nourishment. This underlies Judaism's kosher procedures to
extract blood from meat, which Witnesses do not follow. Christianity eventually
decided the rule was temporary.
Experts assume that Raymond Franz's late uncle, Frederick Franz, who served
anonymously as the Witnesses' chief theologian, decided those passages cover
blood transfusions. But Raymond Franz raises questions about the blood policy in
his book "In Search of Christian Freedom." Among them:
_Why forbid a patient's own stored blood yet permit components derived from
large amounts of donated and stored blood?
_Why allow organ transplants, which introduce far more foreign white blood cells
than transfusions?
_The Witnesses forbid plasma, which is mostly water, but allow the components in
it that provide therapy. So what's the point of banning plasma?
Advances in bloodless surgery have reduced medical dangers for Witnesses in the
United States, but Associated Jehovah's Witnesses maintains the blood policy is
a life-threatening problem elsewhere.
Louderback-Wood says she'll be contented if her protest saves one child's life.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ARE GENERALLY IGNORANT