AIBU to want JW leaders to be held accountable for blood transfusion deaths.

Previously if a JW accepted a blood transfusion & their church found out they would be excommunicated- thrown out of the church & ostracised by the JW community. It's horrific. The u-turn shows what utter balderdash their cult is. They won't apologise for deaths as that might open them up to legal action.

Really?! You can’t see why she would care about this?

Why would they be responsible for apologising? They presumably grew up with just the same brainwashing that you describe and believed in it. They are now doing something brave to try to rethink what they learnt and change it moving forwards. Shouldn’t you be thanking them rather than complaining about them?
If you need someone to blame doesn’t that have to go back generations and generations to the first leaders who banned it?

I’m an ex JW. It is clearly a cult. Brainwashed. Was there from six years old to 21. A lot of the rules have changed now. They can speak and convert disflelllwshiped now. And women can wear pants. Wtf

I may have to bring this up with the JWs that either knock ony door or stand handing out leaflets at the end of my road.

I've had two lengthy cardiac surgeries, which involved multiple blood transfusions. I still struggle with the JWs knocking on my door, when they would have preferred me to have died.

Not read up on this. Curious why you think it's the cult that should be blamed, rather than the people who allow cults to exist? Ban them all and problem solved. Shall we start prosecuting every Catholic priest who condemned homosexual people, unwed mothers... Yes. But also: no. They were allowed to do it so they did.

Yes, and in the Netherlands, for example, there is only one hospital which will carry out heart operations and other surgeries because they have a specialist team used to following the JW practices. I think its Amersfoort.

wtf?

How many wrongs do you think makes a right?

Me and my brother left on our 20s and we were talking on Friday about the mental gymnastics DM would need to do to explain this away. I know she wouldn't accept any form of blood despite this change.

We both have living wills because we can't trust her to make the decision she knows we would make if we became ill and our partners were also ill/dead as she will be out next of kin.

Honestly I think there should be more outrage internally but people will explain it away to themselves that Jehovah has seen fit to give us more guidance now and not 50 years ago because (insert whatever rubbish you want here).

I know some JWs and they seem like decent people, albeit with very rigid beliefs, but if they choose not to receive blood then their choice I suppose. As noted above, decisons about children will be overruled by doctors.

really, you can't think of ANY OTHER RELIGION as bad?
I agree you were unlucky to know JW at such close hand, but they are far from the worst.

The Church of Scientology's opposition to psychiatry is arguably just as harmful. There's a good chance one of my friends would still be alive if his Scientologist parents hadn't persuaded him that he shouldn't take the medication he'd been prescribed for his mental health problems.

There was a 15 year old lad who refused a transfusion in 2010 after a car accident named Joshua MacCauley. Despite him being a minor, he was still able to refuse. There was a young American girl who died of leukaemia and famously compared having a blood transfusion to rape. This was in the 70s or 80s if i remember correctly. Her story was repeated in JW circles and in their Awake and Watchtower magazines as an example of exemplary faith. I can't remember her name as I've purposefully blocked a lot of stuff out but will try and find out. She was only around her eariy teens, and a picture of her smiling face was featured on the cover of JW magazines, it makes me feel sick thinking about it.

To be honest I was more shocked when DM told me that she was now allowed to wear trousers.
She's been freezing since the 1970s, with cold, stiff uncomfortable joints because she had to wear a midi-length skirt and tights (even outdoors) in the winter. Now all of a sudden women are allowed to wear trousers!
On the other hand, it's her own stupid bloody fault.
Yes, I'm another one brought up in the misogynistic cult, escaped when I was 14, but still angry and bitter about many, many things......

Lots of people would die for their religion, those rules could change tomorrow too.
Im not religious so I can't understand it, but I am taught to be accepting of other's beliefs. If a grown adult doesn't want the blood and is prepared to die, so be it.
They won't be the first or last adult to make an unwise decision.

The church of Scientology seems much more crazy in their beliefs, but maybe their beliefs aren’t as overtly harmful. How can people believe these things?

Adults are allowed to follow whatever religion they choose, even to their own detriment. Religions are filled with ridiculous rules. Yet people defend them all the time as deeply held beliefs that must be respected.

For children trapped by their parent’s delusions, I believe we should be much more liberal with intervention when religious belief leads to harm or neglect.

@Exjw1975 Thanks I did not know that

My dear cousin died from breast cancer at age 40.

From what can ascertain a lump needed futher exploration, and for some reason she did not go back.

my aunt claimed that the consultant got angry with them, my sense was that they questioned the treatment process with regard to blood transfusions.

although I cannot be sure about this.

she only returned for help when the cancer mushroomed out of her body.

she was obviously terminal by then.

the worst bit was I did not even know she had died.

our contact was sporadic but all the same.

i was bereft and will never get over that.

thing is they believe the devil is at work everywhere amongst none believers

so tend to limit contact with wider family