Email Rolf J. Furuli:
Dear Dr Muramoto,
You pose some questions and say �It is crucially important that Furuli answer these three questions
unambiguously item by item.� I am very much opposed to laying a smokescreen in order to avoid
making clearcut answers, but as a professional you know that some questions cannot be answered
at all due to different reasons, and others cannot be answered just by 'yes' or 'no'. Your questions
are:
1.Does Furuli, as a member of the Hospital Liaison Committee, fully respect views and opinions of
fellow Witnesses who disagree with him as to which blood fractions are acceptable?
2.How can Furuli explain his statement "the conscience of the individual Jehovah's Witness is a
basis for refusing blood" (Furuli's own words), when disfellowshipping/disassociation is justified for
those who followed their Bible-based individual conscience (provided their exegesis on blood is
different from Furuli's) and decided to accept blood fractions which are different from Furuli's
selection?
3.If Furuli genuinely believes that "the conscience of the individual Jehovah's Witness" should be
respected and "the third party" should not harm the physician-patient relationship, is Furuli willing to
write a letter to the Watchtower Society - a major third party - to suggest a reversal of the current
recommendation that Jehovah's Witness health care workers breach medical confidentiality of fellow
Jehovah's Witnesses and to refrain from intruding on the physician-patient relationship?
1. The answer is 'yes', but I will add that while I respect everyone's right to follow his or her
conscience, nobody can refer to this to prove that I condone their choices.
3. The answer is 'no' because the premises of the question are wrong: a) I do not view The
Watchtower Society as a 'third party' but I view it the same way that my students view me, as a
teacher, and b) I have already shown in the letter to which you refer that Jehovah's Witness health
care workers do not breach medical confidentiality of fellow Jehovah's Witnesses, and do not intrude
on the physician-patient relationship.
2. This question needs some comments because it is too complicated to be answered by a simple
'yes' or 'no'.
To illuminate the problem I will use two illustrations: The first setting is a married couple who are
Witnesses. Suppose the husband starts to have sexual relations with another woman. What does
this action indicate? That he has broken up the marriage, and we can say that he is on the way of
dissasociating himself from his wife. The wife can now demand that the marriage be dissolved in a
legal way. Suppose now that the man insists that the marriage shall not be dissolved; he wants to
live with his wife and at the same time continue to have sexual relations with others. Nobody can
accuse the wife of any wrong doing if she refuses to continue living with him. Her husband has by his
actions shown that he has disassociated himself from his wife, so he can no longer claim his right to
live with her. I respect that this man has the right to do the mentioned things, but I heartily disagree
with him and will point out that he breaks the law of God.
The other setting is a group of doctors. Suppose some doctors created anonymous web pages
where they attacked their collegues. They accused the leaders of the medical organization where
they were members as being dictatorial and not taking care of the interests of the members. They
disagreed with their collegues about the best treatment in particular situations, and they claimed that
those who did not agree with them were responsible for killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of
children.(1) To substantiate their claims they quoted medical articles, but sometimes out of context.
At the same time they insisted that they were good collegues. I suppose that the readers of BMJ will
not accept the mentioned doctors as good collegues. They simply have disassociated themselves
from the good company of their fellow doctors, and then they must accept the consequences.
Some readers of the letters in the Muramoto 'chain' may be confused when they read different letters
where persons calling themselves 'Jehovah's Witnesses' disagree. The case, however, is that
some 'Witnesses' have behaved exactly as the opposing doctors mentioned above, and they have
attacked those taking the lead among Jehovah's Witnesses and on the organization. They have even
created an organization for the reform of Jehovah's Witness view of the blood issue. These persons
have by their actions disassociated themselves from Jehovah's Witnesses, not primarily becuse of a
different view of blood but because of a different view of the very basis for the Christian congregation.
The example above is a clearcut case of someone disassociating themselves. What about less
clearcut examples? As I have stated several times, it is an extremely rare for a Witness to accept
blood, but of course it can occur. How will I view a situation where this happens? I respect everyone's
right to follow his or her conscience, as in the case of the one breaking up the marriage and in the
case when someone accepts blood. But what about the relations between a person who accepts
blood and the congregation? We should remember that the act of taking blood is not something
which in itself severs the relations between a Witness and the congregation. What counts is the sum
of his or her acts and the attitude of the heart, i.e. does the actions of the person show that he or she
has dissasociated himself or herself from the congregation? Every case is different, and therefore
we cannot lay down definite rules which must always be followed. As a conclusion I will say that the
official position of Jehovah's Witnesses is that we do not accept an infusion of whole blood or its
major components. This is the view of all the Witnesses that I know. If anyone does not accept this
and other beliefs, that is his or her privilege, and if someone want to go further and disassociate
themselves, that is also their right. But all persons must accept the consequences of their acts.
(1) The word 'children' was carefully chosen, because it would appeal to the emotions of the readers.
themselves, that is also their right.