A young mother died hours after giving birth to twins because her faith prohibited a life-saving blood transfusion.
Emma Gough, 22, was able to hold her son and daughter after the natural delivery, but suffered a sudden haemorrhage and lost a great deal of blood.
As a Jehovah's Witness, Mrs Gough had signed a form before the birth insisting that she should not be given blood.
Staff at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital begged her husband Anthony, 24, who is also a Jehovah's Witness, and other relatives to allow the transfusion. But followers believe that blood transfusions are prohibited by the Bible and the family would not sanction the treatment.
Mrs Gough, a shop worker from Dawley, Telford, Shropshire, died early on October 25.
This is the kind of thing that makes it very difficult to support religious freedom for all people.
Her ignorance, and primitive belief system, have left her husband a widower and her children motherless. There can be no reasonable defense for this kind of ridiculous behavior.
Emma Gough, 22, became one of 2007's Darwin Award winners....
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, she has already passed on the "stoopid gene" Our only hope is that someone educates the twins to a better standard than she obviously was.
ReplyDeleteShe has shown the incredibly selfish and self centred traits that so often go along with believers in all faiths. Her twins did not choose to be a Jehova, that is an adult decision, but now they have a life with no mother.
Misinterpreting the Old Testament prohibition against eating animal blood as a routine food item, the WatchTower Society began teaching in 1945 that receiving a blood transfusion was "eating human blood". Jehovah's Witnesses believe that receiving an infusion of human blood into their body's circulatory system is scientifically the exact same thing as eating or ingesting blood into their body's digestive system. Paul Gilles recent comments during this tragedy in which he compared injecting alcohol into one's veins (give me a break) to drinking alcohol proves that JWs still believe what the WatchTower Society published back in 1951:
ReplyDelete"A patient in the hospital maybe fed through the mouth, through the nose, or through the veins. When sugar solutions are given intravenously it is called intravenous feeding. So the hospital's own terminology recognizes as feeding the process of putting nutrition into one's system via the veins. Hence the attendant administering the transfusion is feeding the patient through the veins, and the patient receiving it is eating through his veins." -- The WATCHTOWER magazine, July 1, 1951.
Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that when human blood is transfused into their body's circulatory system that the transfused human blood remains to be human blood and continues to function as human blood. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that if blood is eaten, then the ingested blood enters the body's digestive system, where the blood would be treated by the body exactly the same as it would treat a hotdog, a potato chip, or any other food item. Ingested blood would be completely digested and broken down into proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and waste; which are then either assimilated or excreted by the body.
The WatchTower Society uses scriptures which speak about the blood of slaughtered animals to teach Jehovah's Witnesses that blood is "sacred" because blood is the "symbol of life". Then, the WatchTower Society turns around and requires Jehovah's Witnesses to sacrifice their own "life" to maintain the alleged "sacredness" of a "symbol" of the very thing they are sacrificing -- their life. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that the WatchTower doctrine on blood moronically places a higher value on the SYMBOL than it does on the THING SYMBOLIZED.
In fact, the Old Testament scriptures permitted the eating of unbled animal meat, which the Bible treats exactly the same as eating animal blood itself. In isolated occasions, when humans needed to eat unbled meat in order to sustain their own human life, the Mosaic Law permitted such, but then required the eaters to fulfill the requirements of being "unclean" for a few days. Thus, the Bible recognized that the sustaining of human life was more "sacred" than maintaining the sacredness of animal blood. To do otherwise would be doing exactly what the moronic WatchTower Society does. It would make the SYMBOL more SACRED than the THING SYMBOLIZED.
In fact, the WatchTower Society is leading Jehovah's Witnesses to disobey GOD and violate the Holy Scriptures in one of the most serious ways possible. Because humans were created in GOD's image, GOD considers human life sacred. A Jehovah's Witness who sacrifices their SACRED LIFE in order to maintain the sacredness of a SYMBOL of that SACRED LIFE varies little from those who profane life by committing suicide. Those Jehovah's Witness Elders who teach and police this moronic doctrine vary little from common accessories to murder. The Bible is fairly clear in how GOD views murder, and how He deals with Murderers.
This moronic twisting of scripture would be laughable if not for the fact that it has lead to the pointless deaths of numerous Jehovah's Witnesses in the past, and it will continue to lead to the pointless deaths of many more Jehovah's Witnesses in the future.
The following website summarizes over 315 U.S. court cases and lawsuits affecting children of Jehovah's Witness Parents, including 200+ cases where the JW Parents refused to consent to life-saving blood transfusions for their dying children:
DIVORCE, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
http://jwdivorces.bravehost.com