Medical confidentiality and the protection of Jehovah's
Witnesses' autonomous refusal of blood.
Osamu Muramoto, Kaiser Permanente Northwest Division Portland,
Oregon, USA
Journal of Medical Ethics 2000;26:381-386
Abstract
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. 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.
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. 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. The medical
community should be seriously concerned..
(Journal of Medical Ethics 2000;26:381-386)
Keywords: Religion; confidentiality; Jehovah's Witnesses;
autonomy; blood transfusion
Introduction
In his reply1 to my proposal2 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. 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. He intentionally
pushes my discussion to an extreme that does not reflect the reality.
For example, he states "Muramoto continues with his theory
that people never act on the basis of personal integrity
and principles... " , "in Muramoto's view people are motivated
(coerced) by peer pressure and fear of discipline only",
and "Muramoto evidently thinks that no member of any
group or community is truly autonomous if the group or community
has authority to discipline non-compliant members" (emphasis
added). I have never made such extreme statements that cover every
member of JWs or the general membership of other organisations.
Throughout my writings,3 I have presented the situation
of "dissident" JWs who conscientiously disagree with the
blood policy. They are of course a minority of the JW membership.
Ridley even turns my argument completely around by saying "Muramoto's
arguments ignore the elements of individual conscience". 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 also misrepresents my arguments by stating "it is not
readily apparent how exegetical differences between Muramoto and
Jehovah's Witnesses advance medical ethical discourse". Here
he misrepresents my argument as a difference between my Biblical
interpretation and that of JWs. Yet I have repeatedly mentioned
in this series of articles3 that the difference is between
dissident JWs and the controlling WTS. But that is not the ethical
issue dissident JWs are raising. 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. 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 "exegetical
differences". 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. In either case the issue is
worth "medical ethical discourse" and I will expand on
it in this response.
Personal conscience or hypocrisy?
Ridley tries to dismiss my proposal by claiming thata don't-ask-don't-tell
policy promotes hypocrisy by hiding the discrepancy between public
and private actions. Ridley wrote that "Jehovah's Witnesses
believe that God sees everything we do regardless of whether other
humans are aware of our actions". Thus, in his words, Jehovah's
Witnesses' decision making is seen by God and He is the final judge.
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. It is also misleading
for Ridley to speak of JWs being encouraged by my proposal to act
privately "in a manner they publicly declare to be wrong",
and to say that my proposal "trivialises the personal religious
convictions of Jehovah's Witnesses by suggesting they ignore their
belief that the love of God means that they observe his commandments".
The blood policy was not originated from the "personal religious
conviction" of each JW; the complex conglomerate of rules for
medical use of blood were elaborated by the leadership and handed
to JWs for following. Some JWs conscientiously believe that God
has not, in the Bible or elsewhere, forbidden blood transfusions,
and that to accept a life-saving blood transfusion is not to disobey
God's commandments. Just as the ruling leadership has conscientiously
decreed that transfusion of certain blood products does not violate
God's commandments so these JWs conscientiously believe other blood
products may be transfused for life-saving purposes without violating
God's commandments. They do not "publicly declare" their
views because of the draconian punishments meted out by their organisation
and its appointed elders.
A don't-ask-don't-tell policy is to be considered only when a person's
freedom of action conflicts with inordinate peer pressure. There
is no inherent moral judgement in such a policy. Whether it enhances
moral behaviour or not depends on how such a policy is implemented.
I would ask Mr Ridley whether the WTS's policy change in 1983 to
leave oral sex between marriage partners as a personal conscientious
matter4 promoted hypocrisy. His answer should be no.
If someone in a bedroom or hospital room chooses an action that
he or she believes is not prohibited by God's commandments, whether
it is engaging in oral sex or receiving plasma (a blood component
prohibited by WTS), then silently keeping that action private is
not hypocrisy. Although the oral sex issue seems trivial compared
to the blood issue, sexual immorality is prohibited in Acts 15:295
in parallel with eating blood; whether oral sex constitutes sexual
immorality was a subject of discussion in JW literature, as much
as whether transfusion of plasma constitutes eating blood. There
are many parallels between these two specific actions that the WTS
prohibits.
Freedom of choice or organisational mandate?
Ridley uses the scriptural phrase "abstain from blood"
as justification and validation of the organisational rulings, but
he fails to address how to put this injunction in a contemporary
context. His argument jumps from such religious concepts as God,
the Bible and first century Christians to a complex set of organisational
rules of modern medical technology without regard to how such complex
rules are related to the religious concepts. He ignores the argument
raised by the dissident JWs who question the scriptural basis for
the complex, equivocal and arbitrary division of acceptable and
unacceptable fractions and procedures and for the entire doctrine
of refusal of blood transfusions (as distinct from eating blood).
Indeed, to those dissident JWs, the decision to accept or refuse
blood is not about God, the Bible or first century Christians, but
about which blood fraction a JW patient chooses, as compared to
which blood fractions the WTS approves. As long as the WTS policy
forbids certain blood fractions and allows others, as opposed to
abstention from all blood products, it contradicts its own Bible
interpretation, "abstaining from blood means not taking it
into our bodies at all".6 This contradiction alone
causes certain JWs to arrive at the conclusion that the policy is
not based on God or the Bible.
Military service
As an experienced official of the WTS, Ridley knows that when the
organisation "adjusts" any part of its policy, the majority
of JWs will submit to it regardless of their personal choice. That
would be true of virtually any addition to, or any subtraction from,
the presently accepted views. Such a change recently happened regarding
the policy on "alternative service" to military duties.
Until 1995, the WTS prohibited JW men not only from joining the
military but from voluntary alternative service such as hospital
work or other civilian duties the government provided for conscientious
objectors. The WTS reasoned that, as a "substitute," such
service was the equivalent of military service and thus must be
refused. While this policy was in force, it is a documented fact
that letters from the branch offices of major countries to the governing
body of JWs frankly acknowledged that, on the whole, the young men
in their countries did not understand the basis for the WTS's position
in this matter, but were willing to go to prison in order to conform
to it.7 Young Witnesses by the thousands did that for
about fifty years. The new policy allows the issue to rest within
the realm of personal conscience. Ridley introduces the phrase "mind
control" (a term I did not use in my articles), but it is not
necessary to label a situation when the facts speak for themselves.
Thousands of young men chose to follow the now-defunct policy and
spend time in jail. They were not overtly coerced into doing so.
But the majority clearly did not so choose because of being firmly
convinced in their own minds and hearts as to the rightness or reasonableness
of the policy. The letters from the organisationally appointed principal
men in their countries make that clear. Without employing terms
such as "mind control," the evidence is there that they
felt pressure to conform.
The medical community should learn from our debate that a more serious
ethical problem than imprisonment for refusing alternative military
service exists today in the medical care of JWs. Should the medical
community dismiss this as a mere internal theological issue, as
Ridley portrays it, when human lives are being lost due to an organisational
policy that most JWs do not comprehend and where pressure to conform
is backed up by threat of excommunication? Ridley compares the controlling
influence of the WTS on JWs' decision making with outside influences
such as TV, newspapers and magazines. This analogy is flawed because
the recipient of other outside influences is not pressured to accept
views as God's, sent through his divine channel, and is not punished
if he or she acts against that influence.
In reference to "mind control", Ridley also claimed that
coercive manipulation "as applied to religious movements lacked
any scientific foundations" by citing the 1987 internal memo
of the American Psychological Association (APA) 8. However,
the memo, addressed from the Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility
for Psychology (BSERP) to the members of the Task Force on Deceptive
and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control, expresses no official
rejection of mind control theories. It simply rejects a report prepared
by the taskforce due to lack of proper methods. The memo actually
concluded that "after much consideration, BSERP does not believe
that we have sufficient information available to guide us in taking
a position on this issue". This conclusion is far from Ridley's
assertion that coercive manipulation is "a theory roundly debunked
by the scientific community over a decade ago". The board of
the APA merely stated that the information is insufficient on this
issue. Admittedly, the issue of "mind control" is quite
controversial, requiring further research, but it has not been "roundly
debunked" as Ridley claims. For example, the widely used diagnostic
criteria of mental disorders from the American Psychiatric Association
(DSM-IV) lists "brainwashing, thought reform, or indoctrination
while captive" as examples of states of dissociation due to
prolonged and intense coercive persuasion.9
Shunning practice as organisational coercion
Ridley repeats David Malyon's argument10 that all JWs
joined the religion freely with full understanding of the blood
policy. Here Ridley ignores the hundreds of thousands who are members
because they were raised by JW parents and baptised as minors. They
were indoctrinated from childhood into the religion with minimal
exposure, if any, to critical views. It is sufficient to point out
that the WTS strongly discouraged JW youths from seeking higher
education until 1992, that they are today strongly discouraged from
participating in internet forums, and that JW children are trained
to recite their position on blood to doctors and judges. Where is
the free will and full understanding of doctrine for these next
generation JW's? Ridley implies that leaving the religion has little
social cost and that disfellowshipping of members pressures no one
to conform to the blood policy. He states that it is an "indisputable
fact" that "those who wish to leave the religion or choose
to become inactive non-participants readily do so". He further
claims that disfellowshipping severs only spiritual ties and that
"non-spiritual associations are not terminated". The fact
is that there are thousands of former JWs enduring total shunning
by their JW family members who believe this is the only faithful
course for JW's. Contrary to Ridley's insistence, social association
is banned. Even former governing body member Raymond Franz was disfellowshipped
on the charge of eating lunch with his employer who had disassociated
himself from the congregation, as reported in a Time
magazine article.11 What are the underlying teachings
about the shunning of disfellowshipped members? Ridley used the
1981 Watchtower magazine12 I had quoted in an attempt
to show "family ties" are not terminated by disfellowshipping.
A careful reading of the Watchtower instruction shows that the "family
ties" that are not affected by disfellowshipping are merely
the genetic and legal relationships of family members. Since Ridley
gives a wrong impression to readers regarding these coercive practices,
I shall clarify the official WTS instructions. In the 1988 Watchtower
article quoted by Ridley,13 the following paragraph regarding
family relationship appears:
"God certainly realises that carrying out his righteous laws
about cutting off wrongdoers often involves and affects relatives.
As mentioned above, when an Israelite wrongdoer was executed, no
more family association was possible. In fact, if a son was a drunkard
and a glutton, his parents were to bring him before the judges,
and if he was unrepentant, the parents were to share in the just
executing of him, ‘to clear away what is bad from the midst
of Israel'. (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) You can appreciate that this
would not have been easy for them. Imagine, too, how the wrongdoer's
brothers, sisters, or grandparents felt. Yet, their putting loyalty
to their righteous God before family affection could be lifesaving
for them."
In short, the WTS compares the current disfellowshipping practice
to the execution of wrongdoers by the Israelites. The article also
states: "In various serious matters, willful violators were
executed . . . . When that happened, others, even relatives, could
no longer speak with the dead lawbreaker". Then the reason
"family ties" continue is explained thus:
"Cutting off from the Christian congregation does not involve
immediate death, so family ties continue".
In other words, the WTS teaches JWs to treat disfellowshipped relatives
as if they were dead by execution, but because they are physically
alive genetic and legal ties as a family member continue.
When an immediate family member living in the same household is
disfellowshipped, legal family relationships continue. However,
the disfellowshipped member is not permitted to participate in any
religious activities such as leading Bible studies and prayer or
discussing doctrinal issues. For a Christian household, can this
be considered "normal family affections and dealings"?
It is true that the WTS does not recommend immediate divorce from
disfellowshipped mates. However, if a JW man was disfellowshipped
for dissenting from the WTS's blood policy and he tried to explain
his views to his wife, what would happen? No such intimate discussion
is permitted even within the immediate family circle. The WTS has
provided a means for the wife to separate from the husband without
violating the WTS prohibition against divorce except for adultery:
it is called "absolute endangerment of spirituality" 14.
Under this policy, an orthodox JW can obtain a legal separation
from the dissenting JW who would discuss his views. This is exactly
what happened to Wayne Rogers, a California second-generation JW,
who expressed his conscientious disagreement with the blood policy
in personal electronic mail. His JW wife discovered the mail and
showed it to the congregation elders. As a result, Rogers was disfellowshipped
in January 1999 and his wife obtained a separation. His testimony
about disfellowshipping and separation from family vividly illustrates
the tragedy of shunning practised by JWs.15
For relatives who are not in the immediate family circle and for
JW friends, all personal and social contacts are terminated except
for necessary business contacts. The official instruction states:
"Discussion of business matters with him or contact on the
job might be necessary, but spiritual discussions and social fellowship
would be things of the past ".16
The shunning practice of JWs involves every sort of family and social
activity; it has caused irreparable psychological trauma in many
JW households. In fact, shunning is one of the most painful traumas
many former JWs have to live with throughout their lives. For details,
refer to testimonies collected on the web site of former JWs.17
How does this shunning practice work to coerce the members to comply
with the organisational policies? The Watchtower article cited above
discussed the desirability of cutting off association because of
the results it achieves.18 It quoted a JW assaying:
" ‘Cutting ourselves off completely from all association
with [my disfellowshipped sister] Margaret tested our loyalty to
Jehovah's arrangement. It gave our family opportunity to show that
we really believe that Jehovah's way is best.’-Lynette."
Later it described "Margaret's" reaction to being shunned:
" ‘If you had viewed the disfellowshipping lightly, I
know that I would not have taken steps toward reinstatement as soon
as I did. Being totally cut off from loved ones and from close contact
with the congregation created a strong desire to repent. I realised
just how wrong my course was and how serious it was to turn my back
on Jehovah.' " 19
Such testimonies published in this official Watchtower magazine
speak for themselves in showing how the shunning practice works
to achieve conformity to "Jehovah's arrangement" as determined
by the WTS .
In summary of this section, in response to Ridley's assertion that
"Muramoto repeatedly refers to the 'enormous' pressure to conform
that, according to Muramoto, results from the Witnesses' Bible-based
practice of disfellowshipping . . .disfellowshipping requires shunning
and severance of personal ties with family members another misrepresentation
of the facts", I have presented the facts stated in the official
instructions by the WTS and the testimonies of JW's themselves.
Indeed the facts speak for themselves that the current shunning
practice of the WTS can coerce JWs to refuse blood transfusions
even at risk of their death.
Freedom of association or right of organisation? Defending the coercive
practice of disfellowshipping and shunning, Ridley justifies the
restriction of freedom of choice in the medical care of JW members.
He states that John Stuart Mill's statement on free society does
not apply to the JW community because it applies to civil government,
notwithstanding the qualification I quoted in Mill's statement,
"whatever may be its form of government". What Ridley
fails to tell is that the WTS teaches that the "theocratic
government" started in the Hebrew nation in 1513 BCE and continues
in the form of "modern-day theocratic organisation" such
as the WTS. 20 In its official magazine the WTS is equated
to "a separate nation" and "a theocratic land".21
What is inescapably hypocritical is for Malyon and Ridley to use
Mill's statement to demand freedom for their organisation in the
larger human community, while they simultaneously promote among
the JW community a "government" which denies Mill's freedom
to pursue personal values.
Ridley's quotation regarding "nonconformists" who may
"threaten the common welfare" of a community would apply
only if the JW community is one requiring total conformity and not
allowing for exercise of personal, individual conscience. Furthermore
the "threat" to the common welfare is not demonstrated,
simply alleged. Allowing the exercise of personal, individual conscience
in the matter of alternative military service clearly is deemed
not to threaten the common welfare of JW's. Why, then, would the
exercise of personal, individual conscience in a matter such as
an autologous blood transfusion threaten that common welfare? The
only "threat" seems to be to the absolute authority of
the JW leadership and its pervasive control over the decisions of
individual JWs.
Respect for privacy or organisational monitoring?
Ridley adamantly denies the church organisation's systematic monitoring
of JW patients' private lives by saying, "Muramoto's proposals
to rein in allegedly intrusive elders and to educate individual
Witnesses about their privacy rights address nonexistent problems.
Witness elders and hospital liaison committee members are not commissioned,
explicitly or otherwise, to pry into the private affairs of individual
Witnesses", "Muramoto provides no authority for these
statements". The striking fact is that Ridley, as a lawyer
himself representing the WTS, never retracts or denounces the widely
publicised policy published by the WTS in 1987 to encourage JW hospital
workers to breach medical confidentiality.22 The article
used a hypothetical but typical J W hospital worker, "Mary",
who incidentally obtained confidential medical information that
a fellow JW woman received an abortion in the hospital where Mary
worked. The article encouraged Mary to breach medical confidentiality
by revealing this information to the congregation elders, even if
such an action is illegal in many jurisdictions. There has never
been any WTS publication to reverse or retract this notorious policy.
Ridley is fully aware of this policy, which I repeated in two parts
of my papers, yet he provides no evidence or documentation to support
his assertion that this is one of the "nonexistent problems"
I am addressing. He reviews the issue of medical confidentiality
in his reply and has an opportunity to respond, yet he never addresses
this policy. The distinct absence of a response from the WTS legal
counsel indicates that, even if he asserts absence of patient monitoring
by peers, the policy to encourage sometimes illegal disclosure of
medical confidentiality is still in force in the JW community.
Recently I obtained a copy of an internal letter issued by the WTS
and circulated among hospital liaison committee members showing
that the "hospital visitation group" was instructed to
"verify" that the patient it visits has already talked
with medical staff and told them that he or she needs to avoid blood
transfusion.23 Hospital visitation groups are also instructed
to contact the local hospitals on a regular basis to see if any
JW patients are hospitalised so that they may visit all JW patients.
Although the group's primary goal is not to monitor JW patients,
but to give "pastoral care", nonetheless, such systematic
visitation and "verification" of private medical information
such as blood refusal inevitably results in systematic monitoring
and, in essence, prying into the member's private medical decision
making.
The following testimony shows this practice as a personal experience
of a JW elder.24
"In my congregation a hospitalised congregation publisher [a
JW active in preaching] received an unexpected visit from a Hospital
Visitation Committee member who observed that he was receiving a
blood transfusion. This confidential information was then reported
to the presiding overseer and a judicial committee was convened
while the man was still in the hospital. The publisher was promptly
disfellowshiped. The three elders felt there was nothing he could
do to demonstrate repentance since the blood had already been transfused.
About six months later the disfellowshiped man applied for reinstatement
and I served on the committee that heard his plea. I can still recall
the look on this poor man's face as he wept and begged us to reinstate
him so that he would not die out of favor with God. We reinstated
him that day and a few weeks later he lost his fight with leukemia."
Conclusion
Mr Ridley, an official representative of the WTS, argues in his
reply that JWs cannot be accorded the liberty to make a personal
and confidential medical decision to receive a prohibited blood
fraction because allowing for such a conscientious decision is tantamount
to promoting hypocrisy. He further states that the WTS has the right
to deny JWs' personal freedom to choose medical treatment on the
basis of personal conscience and to keep such decisions confidential
because this is necessary to protect the "common welfare"
of "ordered society". Since he denies the presence of
coercive practices and invasion of patient's privacy, I have presented
further evidence that serious ethical violations are currently used
to enforce the blood policy. Obviously Mr Ridley's official statement
requires further scrutiny and consideration by the medical community
at large. Further wide ranging discussions on this subject from
the medical, ethics and religious communities are vitally important.
For my part I believe doctors should inform all JW patients who
refuse life-saving blood transfusions that there is internal disagreement
within the Jehovah's Witness community about whether such refusal
is required by God's commandments, and that the patient is at liberty
to make a conscientious decision to accept such a transfusion in
total medical confidentiality.
Disclaimer
Views and opinions expressed herein are personal and do not reflect
those of Kaiser Permanente and Northwest Permanente PC.
Acknowledgement
I thank many current and former Jehovah's Witnesses who provided
me with valuable documents and discussion, which formed the basis
of this paper. Unfortunately, their names cannot be disclosed publicly
due to fear of retribution by the religious organisation.
Osamu Muramoto, MD, PhD, is a member of the Regional Ethics Council
at Kaiser Permanente Northwest Division and a neurologist at Northwest
Permanente PC, Portland, Oregon, USA. Address correspondence to:
Kaiser Permanente Interstate Medical OfficeEast, 3550 N Interstate
Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97227 USA. E-mail: muramotosa@kpnw.org
References and notes
1. Ridley DT. Jehovah's Witnesses' refusal of blood: obedience to
scripture and religious conscience. Journal of Medical Ethics 1999;25:469-72.
2. Muramoto 0. Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses:
part 3. A proposal for a don't-ask-don't-tell policy. Journal of
Medical Ethics 1999;25:463-8
3. Muramoto 0. Bioethics of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses:
part 1. Should bioethical deliberation consider dissidents' views?
Journal of Medical Ethics 1998:24:223-30. Muramoto 0. Bioethics
of the refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses: part 2. A novel
approach based on rational non-interventional paternalism. Journal
of Medical Ethics 1998;24:295-301.
4. Anonymous. Honor godly marriage. The Watchtower 1983 Mar15: 30-1.
5. The Bible. Acts 15:29.Anonymous.
6. Godly respect for life and blood. The Watchtower 1969 Jun 1:
327.
7. Franz R. In search of Christian freedom. Atlanta: Commentary
Press, 1991: 259-68. Franz R. Crisis of conscience [3rd ed]. Atlanta:
Commentary Press, 1999:12 1-3 1. A former member of the governing
body, Raymond Franz, shows quotations from the 1978 letters sent
by branch committee members of major countries which questioned
the scriptural basis for refusal of alternative service. Note the
similarity to the current internal controversy on the scriptural
basis of refusal of blood.
8. Board of Ethical and Social Responsibility for Psychology. Memo
to the members of the Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods
of Persuasion and Control. Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association, 1987 May 11.
9. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic criteria DSM-IV
Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1994: 232.
10. Malyon D. Transfusion-free treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses:
respecting the autonomous patient's motives. Journal of Medical
Ethics 1998;24:376-81.
11. Ostling RN. Witness under persecution. A secretive and apocalyptic
sect shuns a former leader. Time 1982 Feb 22: 66.
12. Anonymous. If a relative is disfellowshiped . . . The Watchtower
1981 Sept 15: 26-31 at 28.
13. Anonymous. Discipline that can yield peaceable fruit. The Watchtower
1988 April 15:26-31 at 28.
14. Anonymous. When marital peace is threatened. The Watchtower
1988 Nov 1: 20-5 at 22.
15. Rogers W. The Wayne Rogers story. Available on line at: http://www.ajwrb.org/wayne.htm
16. Anonymous. Disfellowshiping-how to view it. The Watchtower 1981
Sept 15: 20-6 at 24.
17. Beacon Light for Former Jehovah's Witnesses (available on line
at http://www.xjw.com) has several articles on shunning, including
a testimony of a former JW who could never see his JW mother after
disfellowshipping until her funeral (http:// www.xjw.com/ron-mom.html),
and another testimony about a devout JW mother who was disfellowshipped
after decades of loyal adherence for refusing to shun her only son
(http://www.xjw.com/rawe-df.html).
18. See reference 13: 26.
19. See reference 13: 30.
20. Anonymous. Faith in Jehovah's victorious organisation. The Watchtower
1979 Mar 1: 12.
21. Anonymous. Jehovah rules-through theocracy. The Watchtower 1994
Jan 15: 14.
22. Anonymous. "A time to speak"- when? The Watchtower
1987 Sept 1: 12.
23. Watch Tower Society. Regulations of the visitation group of
the patients. This is a letter sent to the members of the hospital
liaison committee in October, 1993. A copy in Spanish can be viewed
online at: http://www.ajwrb.org/visitation.htm
24. This testimony is available on line at: http://www.ajwrb.org/letest.htm
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