Jehovah’s Witnesses Adjust Blood Transfusion Policy

The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses has announced an adjustment to its blood transfusion policy, allowing members to decide whether to accept or donate the four main blood components based on personal conscience.

The organisation announced the change in a statement from its World Headquarters in Warwick, New York, published on its website. According to the statement, members can individually decide whether to accept red cells, white cells, plasma or platelets from another person’s blood.

It also said each Witness could decide whether to donate blood for provide components or fractions for use by another person. However, the organisation said its 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 statement said.

International spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses, Paul Gillies, said blood remains sacred to members of the organisation and that decisions involving blood components are matters of individual conscience.

“We recognise that medical decisions involving blood components are a matter of conscience between each Witness and their God, Jehovah,” Gillies said.

The organisation said the adjustment follows earlier updates concerning blood fractions and the use of a member’s own blood during medical procedures. It explained that because the Bible does not specifically address decisions about the four main blood components, those decisions would now be left to individual conscience.

The organisation also said Jehovah’s Witnesses seek medical treatment and do not practise faith healing. Gillies noted that local congregations would not interfere in members’ individual 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 Jehovah’s Witnesses number more than nine million worldwide, with congregations across more than 200 countries and territories. The latest adjustment follows a clarification announced earlier this year on the use of a member’s own blood during surgery and other medical procedures.

Under that clarification, individual Witnesses could decide whether their blood could be removed, stored and returned to them during medical treatment, while the organisation maintained its position against receiving whole blood from another person.