Blood as important as life?

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Jehovah’s Witnesses have died by the tens of thousands abiding by the Watchtower organization’s blood doctrine.[1] These suffered death based on a teaching that treats blood as though it is as important as life.

As Watchtower representative David Maylon wrote in Journal of Medical Ethics[2]:

Because the Watchtower organization teaches the substance of blood is spoken of biblically as symbolic of life and because life should be treated as sacred, then Watchtower teaching has Jehovah's Witnesses treat blood as though it is sacred. But the Watchtower organization holds a competing doctrine that conflicts with a notion that blood should be treated with the same importance as life.

Symbol versus Reality

Watchtower says of symbols that they are obviously not as important as the reality they allegedly symbolize[3]:

If true that a symbol of something is obviously not as important as what it symbolizes, then the Watchtower organization has asserted its blood doctrine beyond the obvious.

Jehovah's Witnesses should not hold blood as important as life. It is obvious, according to Watchtower.

Marvin Shilmer
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References:

1. More than 50,000 dead!

2. Malyon, Transfusion-Free Treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses: Respecting the Autonomous Patient's Motives, Journal of Medical Ethics, Dec. 1998, Vol. 24, No. 6, pp. 376-38.

3. The Watchtower, June 1, 1962, pp. 329-330.

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