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

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.

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).

How many wrongs do you think makes a right?

wtf?

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

The Governing Body should apologise

Revisionism happens in every religion. The Church of England used to condone slavery, for instance.

And they have acknowledged and apologised for their role in slavery. The governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses have never apolgised for anything! Not their million dollar payouts to child abuse victims (in fact, they have actively denied this and called it apostate lies), not the people who have lost their lives due to the blood doctrine, not the suicides caused by their shunning policy which they have also now become more lenient on. In modern terms, The church of England is nothing like JWs. People who weren't raised in this organisation will struggle to understand the level of control this organisation has, very similar to Mormons, Scientologist etc. Not your typical Christian church.

They are nice people on the doors, but their leadership sure isn't nice. Many of us who have been raised in this organisation are understandably angry and bitter about changes like these, especially without any formal apology or acknowledgement. It is absolutely a brainwashing cult.

This is very dismissive of the op and their obviously upsetting experience of growing up as a jw.

Yep. I’ve got very close friends who are JWs. When the elderly man needed a heart bypass the JW elders took turns in always being with him at the hospital. He had originally said he would have the surgery, but it had to be abandoned due to his beliefs about blood transfusions. He’s dead now.

Unless you have lived in the cult of Jehovahs Witnesses then I suggest you educate yourself on how strange it would be to NOT worry about this.

They are responsible for so much damage whether it’s the blood stance, shunning or rife SA cover ups - it is a toxic malignant religious group that unfortunately lures in victims with their holier than thou facade.

It would be an unrecoverable international scandal if the true figure of avoidable deaths were ever published.

@Exjw1975 did you watch the video where it was announced on JW.org?
I watched it last night. There is no reasoning behind it. Just complete waffle. But they will all blindly accept it including my parents. They wont question the absolute U turn.

It is a dangerous cult. Imagine the fear you live in, worrying about what will happen after death and whether you’ve done enough.

A man in my neighbourhood was a JW. He had an accident on his moped. He refused transfusion and died leaving a young family