Posted by AF [AF] on April 05, 1999 at 13:18:57 {6.uz.4vynMtWYktmF7cQdaOt1gg/Zk}:
In Reply to: ***?s for the reform minded posted by Friend on April 05, 1999 at 11:06:06:
Concerning letters from JWs to the Society about transfusions, you're forgetting that for decades the Society had railed against vaccinations as an abominable practice because it supposedly violated God's "eternal law" against eating blood in Genesis 9:4. Vaccinations were, of course, made from blood derivatives, so of course any JW with an ounce of thinking ability would conclude that transfusions were even worse than vaccinations.
So what we had is not something that the JW rank & file came up with on its own. Some merely pointed out that for the Society to be consistent, they would also have to ban blood transfusions.
Why no one seems to have noticed that when the Society gave up on the vaccination ban around 1953 it logically should have kept away from a transfusion ban is beyond anyone's reckoning, I think. I suspect that it was just another pet peave of Fred Franz, which he was able to get formally instituted just as he did so many other harebrained ideas, like banning organ transplants and instituting the teaching that the heart is the literal seat of emotions.
What you're doing, Friend, is blaming "the brothers" for yet another of the Society's failings, just like the Society today blames "the brothers" for its leader failings in the 1975 fiasco and in so many other areas. "It's your fault because you listened to us!"
AF