Posted by AF on March 17, 1999 at 07:21:10 {MW4z4H0.5soKM}:
In Reply to: *Bulgarian agreement Vs WTS posted by gfam on March 17, 1999 at 05:56:23:
For the ECHR web site click here. Unfortunately the key parts are in French. You can also visit href="http://www.visiworld.com/starter/newlight/index.htm"> Liberal Elder's
website and find full a English translation.
: ... it seemed to be a misunderstanding on the part of the reader in that the individual witness has the ultimate right to accept or refuse a transfusion,
I'm not entirely clear about what you mean here, but in the ultimate sense every JW who is not physically restrained has the ability to accept or refuse a transfusion. However, the question of having a "right" to do so is somewhat more complicated. A "right" is a permission granted by some authority to do or refrain from doing something. The concept assumes that the authority also has some power of enforcing the exercise of the "right", and some power of preventing people from preventing the exercise of the "right".
Thus, the concept of the "right to vote" in the U.S. assumes that the U.S. government will take steps to ensure that its citizens can exercise it, and prevent unscrupulous people from mucking with the voting process by threatening voters, etc.
In that sense the Watchtower Society is rather limited in its "authority" because its only power of coercion is the shunning policy. It can rarely physically restrain anyone from taking a transfusion, but it can exercise strong powers of coercion by threatened shunning.
The leaders and lawyers of Jehovah's Witnesses take advantage of ambiguities in the concepts of "right" and "sanction" to confuse others, including the Bulgarian government.
: but that decision is with any consequent sanctions that their action may incur.
This is where the Society has tried to deceive people. A claimed "right" is not a real "right" unless it can be exercised without adverse consequences. I may have the right to swing my arm, and I may have the ability to swing my arm so as to punch you in the nose, but my right to swing my arm ends where your nose begins. This right ends not only because of the obvious violation of your rights, but because of the adverse consequences I would suffer at the hands of governmental authority if I would swing my arm and connect with your nose. In other words, there is a law against physical assault which is backed up by state police power.
In terms of JWs and blood transfusions, JWs have the government granted right to accept a transfusion, but the Society exercises its authority so as to set up adverse consequences for JWs who conscientiously take a transfusion and do not "repent". By taking advantage of the ambiguity in who grants "rights" and who has the power to enforce or prevent the free exercise of them, in its agreement with the Bulgarians the Society has given the impression of allowing JWs the free exercise of the government-granted right to accept a transfusion, whereas it has actually made no change in its policy at all. In simple terms, the Society lied to the Bulgarians and to the world.
Another aspect is what the Society meant by the phrase "without control or sanctions". In the most basic sense the Society cannot physically control what anyone does, so one might make a case that the Society's agreement simply acknowledges this fact. However, that's not what the overall language of the agreement gives the impression of. It gives the impression of allowed true freedom, and true freedom from control of any kind, whether that be physical or threats of disfellowshipment. Therefore, by taking advantage of ambiguity, the Society once again lies to the world.
It's similar with the word "sanction". Normally one thinks of the word as meaning "punishment". However, in May 1998 a representative of the Public Relations Office in Brooklyn Bethel explained to me that what the Society meant by "sanction" was "automatic sanction", even though this is a blatant misuse of the term. Of course, the Society doesn't have automatic sanctions on anything, in the sense that a judicial committee must first meet and then decide whether to apply apply the sanction of disfellowshipment to an offender. So this once again was a deception by the Society since the language implied a change that was not actually made.
Rosetta (I think) has been posting the language of the Society's Septmember 1998 final agreement, which uses the term "arbitrary sanction" instead. This accomplishes the same misleading goal, of appearing to agree with the Bulgarian government's call for full exercise of freedom for JWs in the transfusion issue while actually making no changes at all to the policy the Bulgarians wanted changed.
This deceptive maneuver will probably stand, because even if the Bulgarians realize they've been deceived, they would be loath to admit it publicly. However, discussion on the Net will keep the Society's deception in the public eye for some time to come.
: As i understood it, the society had to agree to allow brothers the right to accept or refuse transfusions, which of course they DO, BUT those actions cannot and are not without sanctions.
Quite right. It's rather difficult to explain these things to JWs, though, since they can't conceive how deceptive the Society can be.
AF