A meeting of hearts if not minds between Jehovah's Witnesses and an atheist doctor

[proud2BlibKansan]

LOS ANGELES -- Christina Blouvan-Cervantes had been battling aggressive leukemia when her blood count plummeted and she landed in the emergency room in Fresno, Calif. Her doctors told her a blood transfusion was her only hope. But her faith wouldn't allow her to receive one.

So she turned to one of the only doctors who could possibly keep her alive: a committed atheist who views her belief system as wholly irrational.

Dr. Michael Lill, head of the blood and marrow transplant program at Cedars-Sinai's Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, is a last recourse for Jehovah's Witnesses with advanced leukemia.

They arrive at Lill's door out of desperation and a desire to live. Many specialists decline to treat them because of their biblically centered refusal to accept blood transfusions, a mainstay of conventional care for the cancer.

Lill thinks their refusal is risky and illogical but nevertheless has devised a way to treat them that accommodates their religious convictions.


Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/05/3411235/a-meeting-of-hearts-if-not-minds.html#storylink=cpy

[xchrom]

1. what a good man. nt

[MineralMan]

2. Good for that doctor. I find the patients' unwillingness to accept

blood transfusions puzzling, but it's very good that this doctor is willing to work with them in treating their illness.

[baldguy]

3. "To avoid transfusions, Lill first builds up patients' blood counts with medications."

"Then he limits blood loss during a regimen of chemotherapy and stem-cell transplants."

Wait. What? She'll accept stem cells but not blood transfusions?

[Schema Thing]

4. Yep. I used to be a JW. The Blood issue is what finally woke me up

... to the fact that I was in a cult.

They accept "fractions" of blood.

Well almost all blood transfusions are not actually whole blood. But they don't accept all fractions.

Just for fun and frustration, read up on their convoluted reasoning as to what they allow and disallow. And the truly evil part about it is that Jehovah's Witnesses themselves are not intimately aware of their own rules - so....

- so a friend of mine needed a liver transplant but couldn't get on the list because he wouldn't take blood. Only after talking to a person in the church who specializes in the matter did he find out he could take the "fractions" of blood that would allow him to have a transplant. He was understandably confused and annoyed (at the lack of coherence with what he thought was a clear biblical prohibition), but he got his mind around it, got his transplant, and has a new lease on life.


Stem cells are just something the witnesses powers-that-be have chosen not to involve themselves with; probably because they see what a bloody convoluted murderous mess their ridiculous blood prohibition has been.

[JNelson6563]

6. But isn't official doctrine

that it is up to the individual? When I talked to some JWs who were out in service, racking up the hours (I knew a former JW who says "Nothing moves slower than a couple of dubs on the doors.&quot , and they assured me their policy was "free will" on the matter. Of course what they didn't say, that the ex-JWs were quick to tell me, is that the social pressure to avoid it is great. I understand the cold-shoulder treatment to those who actually did make the choice to save their own lives is unbearable.

Glad you made it out!

Julie

[Schema Thing]

9. Sure, if they want to die family-less, friendless, and judged a horrible weak sinner by God.

Then yeah, it's totally up to the naive, never been out in the evil "world" Witness.



The short answer is that those Witnesses lied to you by telling a legalistic version of the truth.


Also, as to it being "free will", add to my point above the fact that these people are fed a constant diet of misinformation both about the medical aspects of blood transfusion AND the theological aspects.

Is, say, a 14 year old, smart as a whip, who tells a doctor or judge, "my conscience would make me feel as if I'd been raped if you force a transfusion on me" really exercising "free will"? Hell, is a 36 year old (my age when I made it out!) who was born into the religion really exercising "free will" in the same circumstance?

Only if you think having a gun to your head and a lifetime of brain-washing falls within the definition.

And yes, in the past they have suggested that as a reply for Witness kids to use if faced with a needed blood transfusion.


To this:

"I understand the cold-shoulder treatment to those who actually did make the choice to save their own lives is unbearable."

I would say it's bearable, for me, 10 years on. But just. Well worth it, and my worst day out is better than my best day as a Jehovah's Witness. It has been unbearable for many people - which is why so many go back- a form of Stockholm Syndrome, but also far too many have committed suicide.

Thanks for the hug

[JNelson6563]

12. Your post says it all.

well done.

[OriginalGeek]

5. I imagine (someone will correct me if I'm wrong)

that the prohibition is against blood because 4000 years ago they knew about blood. Nothing specific in the bible about stem cells because they didn't know about them then?

I think it's a shame they make their doctors' job more difficult based on biblical medical knowledge but it's their right to do so. I will say, though, that when they make that choice for their kids it should be considered abuse and possibly murder - or at least manslaughter.

I applaud the doctor for thinking outside the box and at least trying to accommodate them as best he can. I did think it was rude of the other doctor in the article who told the patient to just get her affairs in order without even trying.

I'm no doctor or lawyer so I don't truly understand what is possible and what is legal and where they meet but it seems to me that this doc is a good guy and even though he will most assuredly lose some Jehova's Witness patients won't he at least lose less than the doctors who don't even try?

[Arugula Latte]

8. When you base your life on a collection of stories from the Bronze Age

it can really throw a monkey wrench into things.

[Schema Thing]

10. your last point is correct, but this doc is not all that unique

There are doctors all over who do the same thing.


The doc who was rude was in the wrong of course, since there are known alternatives.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. I also found that odd

[jwirr]

11. The prohibition against blood is specific to blood. That is why one works for her and the other is a

no no.