Last month in Vancouver, Canada’s first sextuplets were born. As may be expected, each newborn weighed in at less than 2lbs, and tragically, two of them passed away. When the survival of the remaining babies seemed dependent on their receiving blood transfusions, three of them were seized by the province and the procedure was administered against their parent’s will. Why? Because these babies were born into a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Jehovah’s Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions.
Of course, everyone loves a good controversy, and what’s more newsworthy than a couple of religious fanatics gleefully sacrificing their own babies because the Bible told them so? In fact, these parents were even told beforehand that if they chose early on to abort two of the six fetuses, the remaining four would increase their chances of survival significantly. Jehovah’s Witnesses also don’t believe in abortion, leading to the deaths of two babies after birth. But speaking as an ex-Jehovah’s Witness (one who left after 18 years with a thorough knowledge of the belief system and a strong distaste for cults) I can tell you that the parents of these babies have not been fairly portrayed.
The New Testament calls on its followers to “abstain from blood” (Acts 15:28, 29). Taken in context, this is considered by many to refer to the level at which one cooks the meat they ingest. If your prime rib is raw enough to still be seeping blood, you’re not abstaining. Jehovah’s Witnesses take this a step further. I remember it being explained to me when I was quite young in the following way:
If your doctor tells you not to drink alcohol, so instead, you just inject it right into your veins, is that much better? No. So if God says don’t eat blood, why would you respond by injecting it directly into your veins?
At age six, this makes sense. Less so as you get older and realize that blood in your veins and alcohol in your veins are a little different, and no one's doctor is comparable to God.
But if there’s one thing I can say for nearly every Jehovah’s Witness I’ve been lucky enough to know on a personal basis, it is that they are all incredibly kind, well meaning people. Especially the women - after a lifetime of care-giving and the inability to maintain a leadership role in their own household (only men may be in positions of power), they are all remarkably good-natured, nurturing individuals, who love their children as much as anyone else.
Follow me for a moment as we weed through some twisted cultish logic: Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that after Armageddon, all of God’s people will be resurrected, returned to a paradise earth where they will live in his care, in peace and harmony forever. Gosh, it sounds great. But here’s the catch: You have to be born first. Remember how the parents turned down the option of aborting two of the fetuses, only to let them die later anyways? Tragically misguided as it may seem to the rest of us, only now do these poor parents have the hope of one day being reunited with their lost children on a paradise earth. Had they aborted them, they would have been lost forever. Now, don’t ask me why abortion is prohibited if an unborn baby isn’t human enough to be resurrected, because that’s something I’ve never been able to get them to answer. Nor can anyone explain the fact that to become pregnant with sextuplets in the first place, the couple was very likely involved in some form of fertility treatment; also Biblically questionable to a religion that prohibits masturbating on account of the sacred nature of God's plan... might be tricky to get a semen sample without a moment alone.
But to return to this idea of life forever on a paradise earth, the resurrection that these parents can now look forward to is something that brings every one of Jehovah’s Witnesses more comfort than I can describe. Honestly, if there’s one thing our culture lacks, its any kind of real consolation when a loved one passes away, and in the most intrinsically human way, this is what many Jehovah’s Witnesses hold onto, and in a lot of cases, the reason they joined up in the first place.
After this whole debacle appeared on the news, my younger brother recommended a couple of chat rooms to investigate, both pro and anti-JW, just to see what the consensus was. I was shocked at how many people, women in particular, felt the same way. Nearly everyone agreed that should they be in the same situation, torn between their devotion to God and the excruciating agony of losing a child, they would declare just once that they refuse to approve the blood transfusion, then step back and pray that the doctor or if necessary the province itself will take over and save their babies. Then their spiritual conscious will be intact and their children saved.
Now, for the sake of time and space, I will refrain from going into the political details surrounding the mainstream coverage of this debate, and save my biting analyses for the coming weeks. Suffice to say, the victims in this case are not only the two children whose lives were lost before they’d begun, but also two parents, left tragically helpless as they’re forced to choose between what a cultish sect has told them is the path to God, and the lives of their newborn babies. If you ask me, when the blood of innocent people continues to be spilled needlessly on battlefields worldwide every minute of every day, what kind of God would prohibit us from using it to save the life of a newborn?
And an interesting precedent may be set here, if the JW couple is successful in suing the province for an apology. I didn’t know you could do that. What happened to suing for money? These crazy religious folk and their intrinsic values.
