D.H. Lawrence is most well-known for his loverly novels, but I am most fond of his book “Apocalypse.” I picked it up again when it caught my eye, patiently waiting, wedged between Bataille and Baudrillard – out of order, why? I opened it up to a random page, and found this passage. I loved it so much that I want to share it with you. Perhaps the greatest difference between us and the pagans lies in our different relation to…
A Japanese women has died for lack of a blood transfusion after a Caesarean birth. The hospital said it had agreed with the woman before the surgery that it would not administer a transfusion. Although she bled a great deal after delivering the child, doctors only took steps to arrest the hemorrhaging. She died several days later, the hospital said. “We briefed her about the danger (before the surgery) and we repeatedly urged her family to accept a blood transfusion….
Marianne Meed Ward of the Toronto Sun has my admiration. She has written an opinion piece – in the Lifestyle Section, yet – that connects some of the dots in the conflict between the Jehovah’s Witness belief in the total abstention from blood and the welfare of children in cases where life-saving blood transfusions may be needed. There are big themes here – civil liberties, freedom of (and from) religion, freedom of (and from) speech, child welfare, biblical scholarship, and…
Jean-Claude Lavoie, 26, is another victim of the Watchtower interpretation of the biblical command to abstain from blood. He died in late December after refusing a blood transfusion while being treated for an intestinal tumor. His (former Jehovah’s Witness) brother, Jonathan Lavoie, has launched an Internet petition calling on the Canadian federal government to make it illegal for a person to refuse treatment on religious grounds. His father stated that the death was “unfortunate, but it came to that. It’s…
British Jehovah’s Witness Alison Mallinder (44) died as a result of refusing blood products. After years of abdominal pain, she was scheduled to have a hysterectomy. When the surgeon got in, he discovered that “some of her abdominal organs were stuck together as a result of a previous operation.” For three hours, four surgeons worked to separate them, and she suffered heavy bleeding. Her hemoglobin levels dropped, so that oxygen couldn’t be carried adequately to her major organs. Neither the…
I was looking at my dissertation today, wondering if I can yet make a readable book out of it. Now that I’ve got a little distance from what was an agonizing process (at least until the last bit, when I actually started enjoying it), it seems better than I thought at the time. Today I’m posting a very select few of the quotations I used as a kind of shorthand that helps me remember the train of thought that’s at…