Blood Transfusion: Follow Your Heart, Jehovah’s Witness Tells Members

The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses has announced that members can now decide, according to their individual conscience, whether to accept certain blood components from another person during medical treatment.

The organisation said the decision covers red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma and platelets, with each member expected to make a personal decision regarding their use.

The announcement was contained in a statement issued by the organisation’s World Headquarters in Warwick, New York, and published on its official website on Friday.

According to the statement, “The decision to accept red cells, white cells, plasma or platelets from another person’s blood is a matter of personal conscience.”

The organisation also said individual Witnesses must decide whether to donate blood specifically for the purpose of providing components or fractions for use in another person’s medical treatment.

However, it stressed that its longstanding position against whole-blood transfusions remains unchanged.

“The long-standing refusal of whole-blood transfusions on religious grounds, a core teaching based on the command to ‘abstain from blood’ (Acts 15:20), is unchanged,” the organisation said.

Paul Gillies, an international spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses at the organisation’s World Headquarters, said decisions involving blood components were matters of individual conscience.

“Blood remains sacred to Jehovah’s Witnesses, who continue to regard life and blood as precious gifts from God,” Gillies said, adding that medical decisions involving blood components were a matter of conscience between each Witness and their God, Jehovah.

The organisation said Jehovah’s Witnesses seek professional medical care while maintaining their religious convictions.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses love life and want the best available medical care. They do not practice faith healing, and they seek out doctors who can provide effective treatment in accord with their wishes, values and beliefs,” it said.

Gillies further said individual congregations would not intervene in members’ personal decisions concerning blood components.

“Congregations do not involve themselves in personal decisions that rest with the individual conscience. We will continue to respect and support the personal decisions of our fellow believers,” he said.

The organisation said the latest adjustment followed earlier updates concerning blood fractions and the use of a member’s own blood during medical procedures.

In March, Jehovah’s Witnesses clarified that individual members could decide whether their own blood could be removed, stored and returned to them during medical treatment, while the organisation maintained its position against receiving blood from another person.

The latest announcement extends the principle of individual conscience to the four main components of blood while retaining the organisation’s longstanding refusal of whole-blood transfusions.

Jehovah’s Witnesses said it has more than nine million members worldwide, with congregations across more than 200 lands.