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Jehovah's Witnesses: about blood transfusions.?
Since the Watchtower Track Society (WTS) prohibits the use of blood transfusions, why does it permit the infusion of albumin, clotting factors, and gamma globulins, all of which are components of human blood and are derived from human blood? Since Acts 15:29 clearly refers to the old Jewish law of not EATING blood (Gen 9:4, Lev 3:17, Deut 12:16), and since the WTS has changed its teachings on other major health related issues like vaccinations, organ transplantations, and its opposition to tonsillectomies (Golden Age, 4/7/26, pg 438), etc. and simply calls these changes "New Light", how can you be sure they won't some day change their teachings on blood transfusions and refer to that change as "New Light" also?
Jehovah’s Witnesses are known for refusing blood transfusions even if that means suffering premature death.
This distance comes from the religion’s leadership teaching that accepting transfusion of blood is a mortal sin. Former
leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses initiated the religion’s blood doctrine on a central premise that contemporary
leadership of the religion arguably no longer believes, yet the doctrine is still enforced by the religion under pain of
extreme communal shunning.
For what became its blood doctrine, in 1945 the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses (the
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society) set forth its primary doctrinal premise as: blood is a sacred
substance.1 As the doctrine progressed additional premises were developed. God restricted the
use of blood solely for sin atoning sacrifices and blood belongs to God alone are two such
premises.2
Based on the doctrine’s central premise Watchtower leadership asserted very strict conclusions
about blood and how its members should and should not use the substance, particularly of eating
or infusing it. One of these conclusions asserted it as sinful to accept a medical transfusion of
blood, even if it was essential to saving the life of a member or of a member’s child.3
Beginning in 1961 Watchtower started imposing its blood doctrine by enforcing organized
communal shunning of members who conscientiously accepted blood transfusion.4 This
shunning is severe. It requires members to avoid all social fellowship with the individual. Even
immediate family members who do not live in the same house are to shun the individual by
avoiding association, including keeping any business dealings to an “absolute minimum”. In
effect, this shunning transforms the target individual into a social outcast who should not be
recognized with as much as a “Hello”.5 This shunning is for life or until the individual “repents”
of their sin, whichever comes first.6
Stated reason for the doctrine
Watchtower has consistently expressed the same primary reason for its blood doctrine by
asserting that blood is sacred.7 This was true in 1945 at the doctrine’s beginning, and to this day
Watchtower asserts the same premise as the fundamental reason for its position on blood. Of its
position of a biblical prohibition on blood transfusion, in 2006 Watchtower stated, “The
prohibition was based, not on health concerns, but on the sacredness of blood.”8
Manifestation of the doctrine
Contrary to the consistency of the doctrine’s primary reason for existing, Watchtower has
inconsistently asserted how its members should manifest belief that blood is a sacred substance.
Relatively early in the doctrinal position, members were taught the sanctity of blood meant they
would accept “no form of blood to be transfused”.9 Though at the time Watchtower’s position
was against Witnesses accepting infusion of any fractions from blood, it specifically named albumin and hemoglobin as forms of blood that should be avoided.10 As late as 1998
Watchtower’s doctrinal position cited hemoglobin as a form of blood it was against members
accepting.11
Decades after the doctrine expressed it as sinful to accept any form of blood, Watchtower’s
position changed to allow acceptance of some forms of blood. In 1978 Watchtower no longer
took a position against its members accepting infusion of albumin from blood.12 Later on, in
2000 Watchtower no longer took a position against members accepting hemoglobin from
blood.13 Today members are taught they can “accept all fractions derived from any primary
component of blood”.14
Discussion
Watchtower’s stated reason for its blood doctrine has remained static, yet its projection of that
doctrine has changed. We have the following distinctly different manifestations of the doctrine:
• Blood is sacred therefore accepting any form of blood for transfusion is wrong and
members who act otherwise should be shunned by family and friends in the religion for
the rest of their lives or until they repent for their wrongdoing.
• Blood is sacred but the only forms of blood that it is wrong to accept are those of whole
blood, red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma. Otherwise if the blood is sufficiently
fractionated then accepting all of it is not necessarily wrong.
The doctrinal projection went from prohibiting everything to accepting everything (so long as it
is sufficiently fractionated).
This dramatic change in doctrinal projection stirs the question: Does Jehovah’s Witnesses’
current leadership believe the tenet “blood is sacred”? If so it means the leadership believes
respect for a supposedly sacred substance that belongs to God alone is consistent with consuming
everything of that sacred substance so long as it is sufficiently fractionated beforehand. In other
words, in the absence of express permission we should be able
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