I pray her kids forgive her

Jehovah outcast's message to twins who lost mum when she refused transfusion

By Amanda Evans & Emma Shankland

AN ex-Jehovah's Witness whose dad died refusing a blood transfusion last night blasted the religion that led tragic mum Emma Gough to leave her newborn twins motherless.

Following the inquest this week into how devout Emma died obeying her church's order to turn down lifesaving blood, crusading Lisa Magdalena (left) told of her hope the babies can one day FORGIVE their mother.

Hell

She said: "I didn't know Emma or her husband Anthony but when birth complications set in she had two choices—TAKE the blood and be struck down as a sinner bound for hell, or DON'T take it and die. Not a nice dilemma.

"But after what happened to me, I can see the situation through the eyes of her little son and daughter.

"I was only two but if I'd been allowed in the hospital when my dad said no to the transfusion, I'd have been on my knees screaming, ‘Please Daddy! Don't leave us!'"

Lisa's father Keith Playford made legal history in 1972 when the hospital treating him after a wisdom tooth op won a court ruling to administer blood AGAINST his will.

But he died before they could act. Lisa said: "By the time I was a teenager I was filled with anger and confusion. I couldn't understand how my dad chose to die when he could have been saved. Because of that I grew up watching other kids with their dads and I felt sick with jealousy and grief."

Ironically pretty Lisa, 38, from Eastbourne, Sussex, has TWICE been forced to make that life or death decision herself—and paid the price by being cast out by the Witnesses.

When she gave birth to daughter Zeta, now 14, she lost a lot of blood like 22-year-old Emma from Telford, Shropshire, but ACCEPTED the transfusion.

Four years ago she developed blood cancer and had EIGHT more transfusions.

"I didn't think twice about it," said Lisa, now recovered. "But I was shunned by the church. So I know the kind of life Emma was facing had she taken that blood.

"The Jeho-vah's Witness rules about transfusions are warped. It all stems from a passage in the Bible which says you should not drink the blood of an animal. It's crazy. They eat meat and even accept organ donations but they won't allow blood transfusion.

"How can they think that's what the Bible meant? They didn't even have blood transfusions then.

"Now I've set up my own counselling service for people facing the choice and I'm writing a book about my life called Comply Or Die."

Jehovah's Witness spokesman Tony Brace said: "We have deep fellow feeling for the family of Emma Gough following her tragic premature death.

"As believers in the Bible we support Emma's personal decision to obey its command to abstain from blood."