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Readers of this blog should not form impression that I completely disagree with views expressed by doctors who have chosen religious association with Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Like anyone else, medical doctors are human beings with their own personal circumstances and histories, and like the rest of us have their own peculiar emotional, spiritual, social and intellectual needs. Put another way, because medical clinicians are trained in scientific means and methods does not mean they form each and every of their views on a rational basis. Sometimes their choices are based on emotional needs. This is not necessarily a weakness; it is human.
With this article I’d like to introduce readers to a particular perspective held by a medical doctor among Jehovah’s Witnesses that I fully and completely embrace as my own.
The physician is Dr. Lowell Dixon. Dixon is a former head of the Watchtower organization’s medical staff. In 1988 he wrote the following in conclusion to an article about conscience[1]:
Readers of this blog should not form impression that I completely disagree with views expressed by doctors who have chosen religious association with Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Like anyone else, medical doctors are human beings with their own personal circumstances and histories, and like the rest of us have their own peculiar emotional, spiritual, social and intellectual needs. Put another way, because medical clinicians are trained in scientific means and methods does not mean they form each and every of their views on a rational basis. Sometimes their choices are based on emotional needs. This is not necessarily a weakness; it is human.
With this article I’d like to introduce readers to a particular perspective held by a medical doctor among Jehovah’s Witnesses that I fully and completely embrace as my own.
The physician is Dr. Lowell Dixon. Dixon is a former head of the Watchtower organization’s medical staff. In 1988 he wrote the following in conclusion to an article about conscience[1]:
In those words Dr. Dixon expresses a sentiment he cherished as his own, that “no society” is “free” unless the conscience of individuals is respected, regardless of the “form of government” under which it exists. As Dixon embraces the notion, “Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest."
The form of government claimed by Watchtower’s organization is said by it to be theocratic. Dixon’s cherished belief above stands even in the face of a theocracy because the belief is held by him regardless of the form of government.
Dixon’s parting statement resonates that there is gain in leaving each to live as seems good to themselves rather than compelling each to live as good to a community. This resonates because the blood doctrine developed and implemented by the Watchtower organization does just the opposite. Under Watchtower administration Jehovah’s Witnesses are not left free to choose blood product therapies according to their own individual conscience. Rather, Watchtower compels that individual Jehovah’s Witnesses comply with details of its blood doctrine or else face severe and harsh organized communal shunning that represents a threat to health and well-being.[2]
According to author Ray Franz who knew Dr. Dixon personally, Dixon had trouble swallowing the organization’s notions of “major” and “minor” blood constituents since for any given patient what constituted either depended on the individual medical need.[3] Given Dr. Dixon’s expression of belief regarding individual conscience, it takes little imagination to think he also struggled with how the Watchtower organization’s blood doctrine intruded into personal conscientious decisions of medical care given he certainly was aware that both historically and to this very day not all Jehovah’s Witnesses embrace that blood doctrine.[4]
I agree with Dr. Dixon that the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses would have greater gain by suffering each other as seems good to themselves regarding transfusion of blood products than by compelling each of these individuals to refuse selective blood products. My agreement is only augmented by another fact Dr. Dixon was unavoidably aware of, that there is no mention whatsoever in Scripture of blood constituents as though one is off-limits and another is perhaps not off-limits.
Marvin Shilmer
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References
1. Dixon JL, MD, Blood: Whose Choice and Whose Conscience?, New York State Journal of Medicine, 1988, Vol. 88, pp. 463-464.
2. See the articles:
● More than 50,000 dead
● Watchtower’s Gunpoint
● Watchtower doctrine that kills Jehovah’s Witnesses
3. In Search of Christian Freedom, Second Edition, by Raymond Franz, Commentary Press, Atlanta, 2007, p. 719.
4. Jehovah’s Witnesses Accepting Blood Transfusion
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