Jehovah witness bedroom laws series#

It is also misleading for Ridley to speak of JWs being encouraged by my proposal to act privately вЂњin a manner they publicly declare to be wrongвЂќ, and to say that my proposal вЂњtrivialises the personal religious convictions of Jehovah's Witnesses by suggesting they ignore their belief that the love of God means that they observe his commandmentsвЂќ. That is precisely my point: that the matter of making a choice about blood transfusions should rest as a matter between the conscience of the persons needing them and their God, without the monitoring, intervention or sanction of an organisation. Thus, in his words, Jehovah's Witnesses' decision making is seen by God and He is the final judge. Ridley wrote that вЂњJehovah's Witnesses believe that God sees everything we do regardless of whether other humans are aware of our actionsвЂќ. Ridley tries to dismiss my proposal by claiming that a don't-ask-don't-tell policy promotes hypocrisy by hiding the discrepancy between public and private actions.

In either case the issue is worth вЂњmedical ethical discourseвЂќ and I will expand on it in this response. Whether Ridley really cannot comprehend this important ethical issue or only pretends to miss the point in order to obscure the real issue is unclear. It is actually a conspicuous ethical problem that a religious organisation controls personal, confidential and potentially life-saving decision making of individual members in medical care based on вЂњexegetical differencesвЂќ. The issue is the course the WTS follows in controlling the personal medical decision making of those JWs who have other views of the Bible regarding the medical use of blood. But that is not the ethical issue dissident JWs are raising.

Jehovah witness bedroom laws series#

Yet I have repeatedly mentioned in this series of articles 3 that the difference is between dissident JWs and the controlling WTS. Here he misrepresents my argument as a difference between my Biblical interpretation and that of JWs. Ridley also misrepresents my arguments by stating вЂњit is not readily apparent how exegetical differences between Muramoto and Jehovah's Witnesses advance medical ethical discourseвЂќ. It is incomprehensible how Ridley came to such a distorted conclusion when the whole point of my writings is precisely to protect the freedom of conscience of individual JW patients. Ridley even turns my argument completely around by saying вЂњMuramoto's arguments ignore the elements of individual conscienceвЂќ.

They are of course a minority of the JW membership. Throughout my writings, 3 I have presented the situation of вЂњdissidentвЂќ JWs who conscientiously disagree with the blood policy. I have never made such extreme statements that cover every member of JWs or the general membership of other organisations. For example, he states вЂњMuramoto continues with his theory that people never act on the basis of personal integrity and principlesвЂ¦вЂќ, вЂњin Muramoto's view people are motivated (coerced) by peer pressure and fear of discipline onlyвЂќ, and вЂњMuramoto evidently thinks that no member of any group or community is truly autonomous if the group or community has authority to discipline non-compliant membersвЂќ (emphasis added). He intentionally pushes my discussion to an extreme that does not reflect the reality. However, before addressing these important issues, I must point out that Ridley resorts to exaggerations and extreme terms to obscure the issues my proposal raises. In his reply 1 to my proposal 2 for a don't-ask-don't-tell policy on Jehovah's Witnesses' (JWs) personal medical decision making on blood transfusions, Mr Donald Ridley of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (WTS) has made several serious charges which require further comment. The medical community should be seriously concerned.

Ridley's lack of candour in dealing with the plea of dissident JWs for freedom to make personal and conscientious decisions regarding blood indicates that a serious breach of ethics in the medical care of JWs continues. In this refutation, I present proof from the WTS's literature, supported by personal testimonies of JWs, that the WTS enforces its policy of blood refusal by coercive pressure to conform and through systematic violation of medical confidentiality. Besides exaggeration and distortion of my writings, Ridley failed to present substantive evidence to support his assertion that no pressure exists to conform to organisational policy nor systematic monitoring which compromises medical confidentiality. Mr Ridley of the Watch Tower Society (WTS), the controlling religious organisation of Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs), mischaracterises the issue of freedom and confidentiality in JWs' refusal of blood by confusing inconsistent organisational policies with actual Biblical proscriptions.