Here’s an interesting post from the nice
people at Blood
Bytes Beyond. How do you proceed if someone has a religious objection to
having a blood transfusion.
I find I have to stop myself and take a
deep breath when it comes to deeply held religious views as I used to have
them. Back in the day I was a Steward in the Methodist Church. I was one of a
committee of four that hired and fired the vicar. And one day I suddenly realized
that I didn’t believe a word of the nonsense that I was professing; I just desperately
hoped that it was true as the alternative of a godless universe was rather scary.
Part of my religious life was a bible
study class every Thursday evening in which we would read what appeared to be
stark nonsense and try to rationalize it. It clearly says in the Bible that we
should abstain from blood (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:10; Deuteronomy 12:23;
Acts 15:28, 29) but that means abstain from eating animal blood… which is
possibly not a bad thing to do as uncooked animal blood can give you tapeworms.
But I doubt very much if anyone writing the Bible all those years ago had blood
transfusions in mind.
I’ve had this argument with Jehovah’s Witnesses
who’ve come banging on my door. In my experience there are two types of Jehovah’s
Witnesses…
Those who feel that blood transfusions
are utterly evil and sinful.
Those whose lives have been saved by
them who take great pains to explain that scripture is open to interpretation.
And that’s where I fall out with
religion. It is all so open to interpretation. Until such time as God leans
over a cloud and bellows out instructions it is all guesswork, isn’t it? And the
less evidence someone has for a religious standpoint, the more convinced they
are that they are right.
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