Hello all. My new job has been going great and I love it but it does challenge me and my ethical beliefs constantly and it makes me a better person. A university hospital is very technologically advanced and sometimes this technology saves lives but sometimes it seems like why are we keeping this person alive with this technology. We had one lady that was in the ICU for 4 months and she did not want any of what we were doing and the nurses knew it but the one daughter of hers that had the power of attorney wanted to do whatever possible to keep her alive due to guilt on her part. Last week the family finally decided enough was enough after 2 months of convincing by the medical team. They drove her home to die. We were thrilled since we knew that was what the patient wanted. That kind of thing happens everyday, when is enough, enough?
Last week though there was a situation that just angered me. I was not the nurse but the patient was near to where I was working that day. It was a woman in her 40's to 50's who had her spleen removed, a very routine surgery that most people recover from very quickly. The thing is that it is a bloody surgery so you usually loose a good amount and so you need several units of blood reinfused via donation. Her surgery went well but she did loose a substantial amount of blood. The kicker was that she was a Jehovah's witness and refused any blood transfusions period. We gave her all the blood that she had donated prior to the surgery which was not much and we gave her all of the non-blood products we could to give her volume but to no use. About 2 hours after she got out of surgery her blood pressure and heart rate just kept falling and she died. How dumb is that? She would have easily lived with a couple of units of blood. You just cannot manufacture something as good as human blood. It just made me angry that someone let there religious beliefs kill them like that. Religion is not worth your own life. I wish people would realize this. I would not have been able to take care of this lady because I would want to be yelling at her and saying why are you so damn stupid even though she was unconscious and on good drugs. Unfortunately you cannot change people's beliefs no matter how farfetched they are. Jehovah's witness is one of the religions I will never understand. After she died I just thought: What a waste of time and resources on our parts. She had a $20,000 surgery for no reason basically. I wish she would have weighed the goods and bads and would have not had the surgery to begin with. I really hate how religion runs people's lives sometimes. It is all fake people and you are just using it as a crutch so as to not face your real life and problems!! Get over it!
Update: Of course I would never ever say this to a patient but I would be thinking it. I would give every patient I have the very best care regardless of their color religion or beliefs.
Update: As a nurse you have to know your boundries and what you believe and sometimes you have to take yourself out of the situations where you have a strong belief. That was the point of this blog. Nursing is hard and there are a lot of big issues that arise.
5 years ago
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While it is unfortunate that the lady's refusal of blood caused her death, I think you've got a little bit of a double-standard in your post.
In the first part you question whether our advanced technology should be used to keep a woman alive who did not want to benefit from such technology. You were pleased when her family finally respected her wishes.
The second woman similarly refused to be helped by medical technology, yet you look scornfully upon her. Why? Both women lived (and died) according to their respective beliefs.
Why is one worthy of admiration and the other not?
I'm sorry to hear that the woman's decision made you so angry, but perhaps you should know a little about where Jehovah's Witnesses are coming from. We firmly believe that the Bible is the Word of God and as such, we seek to obey its commands, even if this means certain death. In the case of blood, the Bible repeatedly commands us not to partake of it, to 'abstain' from it. Why? Because the blood represents the value of life, and that belongs to God alone. (Genesis 9:4; Deuteronomy 12:23; Acts 15:28,29)
Now granted, you may think this is silly or foolish, but quite honestly, that doesn't matter to us. The Bible states, "If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this system of things, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." (1 Corinthians 3:18,19)
You said, "Religion is not worth your own life. I wish people would realize this." Let me give you an example of just how dangerous this belief is. In the 1930's in Nazi Germany, many Germans were religious people, but they were caught up in very dangerous times. Even though many were disturbed by what Hitler was doing to the Jewish people and others, they went along with it so that they wouldn't lose their own lives. As a result, today we have the sad chapter of history known as the Holocaust.
But Jehovah's Witnesses were different. Because Hitler's mad demands went against what they knew the Bible teaches, they refused to obey him wherever his commands conflicted with the Bible. As a result thousands of Witnesses were sent to concentration camps. They could leave whenever they liked, simply by signing a document renouncing their religion and dedicating themselves to Hitler, but very, very few ever did. Many of them died in those camps.
Was this foolish according to your statement above? Maybe you think it was, but consider what the book Holocaust Politics (2001) has to say, "If more people practiced versions of what the Jehovah's Witnesses preach and practice, the Holocaust could have been prevented and genocide would scourge the world no more."
If one dedicates him or herself to live by a set of principles, they should be willing to die by those same principles. To ditch them to save one's own life is not only cowardly, but also very unwise when we consider what Jesus said about 2,000 years ago, "whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25) We have unshakable faith that if we remain loyal to his Word, God has the power to resurrect us.
Even if you don't agree with the Bible, for whatever reason, hopefully this will help you to understand us a little bit better.
TJ
Sorry, I can't go along with any religion where the founding went something like this (I swear this is actually true):
Jesus is coming back to earth in 1873. Oh wait, I meant 1874. You didn't see him? Oh, that's because he was 'invisible'. You'll just have to trust me. By the way, the world will end in 1914. Huh, no luck there either...Well, what we meant was that the "final days" started then. We got some more great predictions though:
* God will destory all chruchs except ours in 1918.
* Every country of the world will be destroyed by 1920.
* Everyone alive in 1920 will live to see Armageon.
Huh...we really do suck at this whole 'predicting thing'. Almost makes you think we were making it up or something...
What you seem to be referring to are past interpretations of Biblical prophecy made by Jehovah's Witnesses which were not 100% correct. It is apparent that you have already made up your mind on this, so I won't go into it much, but I'll just say that no religion, nor any organization made up of imperfect humans for that matter, is ever error free. This is not a requirement that the Bible asks for, as even faithful ones in the Bible interpreted prophecy incorrectly at times.
Still, the points you brought up (without any evidence to examine and which I would contend has been twisted) were not 100% wrong. For example, monumental earth-shattering events did take place in 1914, as countless historians testify to, which still affect us today. Jehovah's Witnesses never claimed to be infallible when it comes to interpreting prophecy and we openly acknowledge that prophecy cannot be understood fully until it has already taken place. We are always ready to change our understanding of the Bible's prophecy, when the evidence points in that direction, and in our understanding of the Bible as a whole.
So, unless you claim to be 100% correct all the time, or know someone who is, your criticism proves very little. I find it interesting that you have nothing to say in regards to Jehovah's Witnesses clean moral standing in Nazi Germany, which cost many of them their lives. Can you see my point that ditching one's religion, the code of principles by which one lives, just to save oneself can be dangerous? There have been countless books written and many museums constructed to teach this very lesson.
TJ
"Sorry, I can't go along with any religion..."
Why makes you think somebody is asking you to?
I see a lot of religion bashing here and it makes me kind of sad. We have one commentator who attempts to explain the beliefs of this particular religion and it's ridiculed.
If somebody is going to live by a set of beliefs - any set of beliefs - why should any of us make fun of them.
I mean, you guys insist on wasting your money on piece of shit American cars - especially gas-guzzling Mustangs when you know very well which countries benefit from your petrol expenditures - but you don't see me constantly making fun of your retarded decisions.
Peace.
Um, couldn't a person have a strong code of principles without being religious?
Yes, I never said they couldn't. Whether or not you want to call a principled way of life a "religion" or not is just a matter of semantics. I am just making the point that to abandon your principles for the sake of your own life is unwise and can be dangerous.
Where in your quote does it say that blood transfusions are bad? Isn't that also just some one's interpretation.
Well, in a 2,000 year old text your not going to find the term "blood transfusion." But the principle behind the commands still apply in our view. Blood is to regarded as sacred, or set apart for a special purpose. We are not to take foreign blood into our body. We are told to "abstain" from blood. If a doctor told me to abstain from alcohol, I wouldn't hook up to an IV and take it intravenously.
TJ
Because the blood represents the value of life, and that belongs to God alone. (Genesis 9:4; Deuteronomy 12:23; Acts 15:28,29)
Genesis 9:4 - "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat"
Deuteronomy 12:23 - Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: and thou mayest not eat the life of the flesh."
Acts 15:28-29 - "That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well."
This is just my interpretation, but each of those passages is referring specifically to "eating" flesh and blood, at least in my bible. i.e., they are statements to avoid cannibalism, not blood transfusions.
The last one does use the word abstain, but again the context implies "eating", at least to me.
Couldn't the Bible mean not to eat meat when it says not take in any blood?
That's a good question. When the flood of Noah's day subsided, for the first time God made allowance for man to hunt animals as a food source (not for any other purpose). He told Noah, "Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to you. Only flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not eat." (Genesis 9:3,4) So it was only the blood that could not be partaken of.
This law on blood was repeated both at the time that God made a covenant through Moses with the Israelites and again when he replaced that with a new covenant through Jesus with Christians. So this respect for blood is evidently very important. But why?
As God told Noah, the blood is (or represents, as I'll explain) the soul of the creature. Many people today have a wrong idea about what a soul is, thinking it is some immortal spirit that leaves the body at death. That concept came directly from Greek philosophy and not the Bible. The Hebrew word for "soul" used in the Bible is nephesh, which literally means "a breather," i.e. any living creature that breathes. Hence we find that after God created Adam's body from dust and blew the breath of life into him, "the man came to be a living soul." (Genesis 2:7) Likewise when God made the animal creation on the earth he said, "Let the waters swarm forth a swarm of living souls" and "Let the earth put forth living souls." (Genesis 1:20,24) It stands to reason that when a breather, a living soul, ceases to breathe, it is dead. We are told, "The soul that is sinning—it itself will die." (Ezekiel 18:4) So the soul is certainly not a spirit nor immortal. We are souls and we are mortal.
The blood, being an invaluable part of the living soul, well represents it as a whole. God says, "All the souls—to me they belong." (Ezekiel 18:4) This is why he demands us to treat blood as special, or sacred, because it shows respect for the life that belongs to God. This is the underlying principle that accounts for such detailed instructions to his covenant people, such as:
"As for any man of the sons of Israel or some alien resident who is residing as an alien in your midst who in hunting catches a wild beast or a fowl that may be eaten, he must in that case pour its blood out and cover it with dust. For the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood by the soul in it. Consequently I said to the sons of Israel: 'You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood. Anyone eating it will be cut off.'" (Leviticus 17:13,14)
There is only one other use for blood that the Bible approves of once it leaves a person's system, and that is for making atonement with God.
"For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have put it upon the altar for you to make atonement for your souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul in it." (Leviticus 17:11)
"Yes . . . unless blood is poured out no forgiveness takes place." (Hebrews 9:22)
This is the reason why the ancient Israelites sacrificed animals to God, for forgiveness of sins. But no animal blood could ever buy them complete forgiveness. Not even an imperfect human's blood could bring total forgiveness for sins. Only the blood of a perfect man, poured out in our behalf, could bring us complete forgiveness and so give us the opportunity for everlasting life. It has to be a perfect man because our original Father, Adam, was a perfect man who sinned, and in doing so spread the resulting death sentence on to his children. So according to the 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth, soul for soul' principle of justice, only the sacrifice of a perfect man could could buy back by ransom what the perfect man Adam lost by rebelling. That is why we have a "release by ransom through the blood of that one [Jesus], yes, the forgiveness of our trespasses [or sins]." (Ephesians 1:7)
So, with all of this background knowledge in mind, Jehovah's Witnesses have to make a decision when it comes to blood transfusions. We have to discern whether or not taking another soul's blood into our body, albeit in another form than through our mouth, would be breaking God's law.
We have come to the conclusion that that blood is (represents) the soul of another person, and as such that soul belongs to Jehovah. It should remain with that person or, if it is shed blood, it should be 'returned' to Jehovah by returning to the ground.
Hopefully this explanation will give a little bit better picture of why we don't just object to the literal "eating" of blood. We believe there is an underlying principle that we must respect.
TJ
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