Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions?

Question

Just out of curiousity, I would like to know why this religion forbids blood transfusions. I know there is a case going on about the sextuplets who were seized from their parents by the government, (which must of have been REALLY terrifying) because they refused the treatment, and I want to have more information. Thanks to whomever can help me.

Answer 1

This is long, but you have asked a very serious question.

“A growing number of hospitals are offering an alternative: 'bloodless' surgery,” reported THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. “Originally developed to accommodate Jehovah's Witnesses,” stated the journal, “the practice has gone mainstream, with many hospitals promoting their bloodless-surgery programs to the general public.” Hospitals around the word are discovering numerous benefits, particularly to patients, when implementing strategies that curtail the use of blood transfusions. Currently, thousands of doctors are treating patients without resorting to transfusions.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES and HEALTH

Jehovah's Witnesses, some of whom are physicians and nurses, are known worldwide for their rejection of transfusions involving whole blood or primary blood components. Does their united stand against this practice stem from a man-made doctrine or a belief that a person's faith can heal medical ailments? That is far from the truth.

Cherishing their life as a gift from God, the Witnesses strive to do their best to live according to the Bible, which they believe is “inspired of God.” That book encourages worshippers of God to avoid practices and habits that harm health or endanger life, such as overeating, smoking or chewing tobacco, abusing alcohol, and using drugs for recreational purposes. (Prov. 23:20; 2 Cor. 7:1)

By keeping our body and surroundings clean and getting some physical exercise for health reasons, we are acting in harmony with Bible principles. When Jehovah's Witnesses get sick, they demonstrate reasonableness by seeking medical care and accepting the vast majority of available treatment options. True, they obey the Bible command to “keep abstaining from ... blood,” insisting on nonblood medical management . (Acts 15:29)

A “Circular of Information” prepared by three U.S. blood agencies states on its first page: “WARNING: Because whole blood and blood components are made from human blood, they may carry a risk of transmitting infectious agents, eg, viruses. Careful donor selection and available laboratory tests do not eliminate the hazard.”

Regarding a Canadian study, the Glove and Mail newspaper reported that thousands of blood transfusions involved near-misses be cause of “collecting blood samples from the wrong patient, mislabelling samples and requesting blood for the wrong patient.” Such mistakes cost the lives of at least 441 people in the United States between 1995 and 2001.

No wonder Brian McClelland, director Edinburgh and Scotland Blood Transfusion Service, asks doctors to “remember that a transfusion is a transpland and therefore not a trivial decision.” He suggests that doctors ponder the question,”IF THIS WAS MYSELF OR MY CHILD, WOULD I AGREE TO THE TRANSFUSION?” More than a few health-care workers express themselves as did/one hematologist, “We transfusion-medicine specialists do not like to get or to give blood.” If this is the feeling among some well-trained individuals in the medical community, how should patients feel.?

Many doctors, would agree with medical director Dr. Michael Rose, who says: “Any patient who receives bloodless medicine is, in essence, the recipient of the highest quality surgery that is possible.” The highest quality of medical care--is that not what you would want?

This is not the reason Jehovah's Witnesses do not take transfusions, but it is a good enough reason for refusing transfusions, and one that you should consider if ever you need blood, because all operations can be performed without blood.

Death by 'TRALI'

Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), first reported in the early 1990's, is a life-threatening immune reaction following a blood transfusion. It is now known that TRALI causes hundreds of deaths each year. Experts, however, suspect that the numbers are much higher, as many health-care workers do not recognize the symptoms. Although it is not clear what caused the reaction, according to the magazine “New Scientist”, the blood that caused it “appears to come primarily from people who have been exposed to a variety of blood groups in the past, such as ... people who have had multiple transfusions.” One report states that TRALI is now near the top of the list for caused of transfusion-related deaths in the United States and Britain, making it “a bigger problem for blood banks than high-profile diseases like HIV.”

Back in the days of Noah, an ancestor of all mankind, God laid down a remarkable law. While granting humans the right to eat the flesh of ansimals, he forbade them to consume the blood. (Gen. 9:4) He also gave them his reason, equating blood with the soul, or life, of the creature. He later said: “The soue (or life) is in the blood.” In the eyes of the Creator, blood is sacred. It represents the precious gift of life that each living soul possesses. God restated this principle again and again. Lev 3:17; 17:10, 11,14; Deut. 12:16,23.

Shortly after Christianity was founded some 2000 years ago, believers were give the divine commandment to “ABSTAIN from....blood.” The prohibition was based, not on health concersn, but on the sacredness of blood. (Acts 15:19, 20,29) Some argue that this God -given restriction applies only to the eating of blood, but the word “ABSTAIN” speaks for itself. If a doctor told us to abstain from alcolol, we would hardly feel at liverty to inject it into our veins.

The Bible further explains why blood is so sacred. The shed blood of Jesus Christ, representing the human life that he gave in behalf of mankind, is key to the Christian hope. It means forgiveness of sins and hope of eternal life. When a Christian abstains from blood, he is in effect expressing his faith that only the shed blood of Jesus Christ can truly redeem him and save his life. (Eph.1:7)

Jehovah's Witnesses are well known for taking these Bible commands to heart. They reject all transfusions involving whole blood or the four primary blood components -- redcells, plasma, white cells, and platelets.

Answer 2

It states, His birth parents, Lindberg Sr. and Rachel Wherry, who do not have custody and flew from Boise, Idaho, to be at the hearing, believed their son should have had the transfusion and suggested he had been unduly influenced by his legal guardian, his aunt Dianna Mincin, who is also a Jehovah's Witness. After reading his I wondered why all this time the boy was sick and his parents never came until he went to court. As for him being unduly influenced The judge made his point: The judge said his decision was based strictly on facts. "I don't believe Dennis' decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision," With the transfusions and other treatment, the boy had been give a 70 percent chance of surviving the next five years. If a person follows what they believe in right, and that belief is in the Bible, why should he not follow it. Just to live a few extra years. God tells us if we follow his laws he will bring us back to life. The boy decided to follow the Bible and God has not forgotten him.

Answer 3

I was born as a JW and kinda still am one. There is much to learn on what the bible says, but I have been taught not to have blood transfusions. It has something to do with new laws God set back in bible times, but I don't remember it clearly.

I was in a near fatal accident at the age of 9 and I had a really low blood count. Doctors wanted to give me blood, but my parents stood firm. I slowly built my blood back up to normal. However, there was a new-born in the ICU room next to mine that had a transfusion and died from it.

From seeing how patients react to not having transfusions, doctors have come up with alternite means of care that work. If you want to know EVERYTHING about it, you can look up Jehovah's Witnesses in the phone book and ask them to bring you a video on it called: No Blood- Medicine Meets the Challenge.
It is free of charge, just like the Watchtower and Awake! magazines and it has all the information you are looking for.

Answer 4

This question is getting old, only 10% of those refusing blood are witnesses.

As for people claiming that abstaining (Acts 15:20) only refers to eating, does that mean that only oral sex is bad and that all other forms of fornication are okay?

There are now over a dozen hospitals that are now bloodless. UCLA now performs bloodless transplants.

There is so much in the Bible that they could not have understood the science behind why something should or should not be done. In our modern times, we are learning just how the science fits.

There is no safe blood transfusion, even if there is no infectious agent present in it. Every transfusion lowers the body's immunal response and the exact same manner as AIDS does. There may or may not be any connection, but the fact if that it leaves you open very rare diseases, just like AIDS. It still requires coming into contact with the disease for it to become a problem.

That aside, there is the growing problems with contamination of the blood supply.

I'm a taxi cab driver in Kansas City. Ask most any cab driver or taxi passenger in the area who Papa Bear is and they will tell you.

Last Spring, there was a conference here of reps of Blood Services, from all over the world. They were here to learn a new labeling system. Up until this year, there was no uniform labeling system for blood, causing mismatches and other problems.

I had some passengers from London and I asked them about an article I read that England was importing thousands of pinks of blood a year from the U.S. because of contamination of their local supply by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow). They said they were, but the practice has been discontinued, as the U.S. supply was no longer considered safe within the parameters they set, in other words, what is an allowable percentage of contamination.

They now get it from Australia. Apparently, Canadian is also not considered safe. She said we are fooling ourselves if we think our supply was anywhere near being safe. There are no tests for Mad Cow that can be done on blood. It can only be confirmed after death. There has also been an increasing rate of viral zoonotic (Rabies).

So, if people want to hide their heads and think their safe, go right ahead, but I'll stay with the 90% of non-JWs who are also refusing blood.

The sale of blood and blood products is big money, to where there is a growing problem with over bleeding of those who donate or sell their blood. When you over bleed, the immune system gets activated, causing a production of chemicals to create clots. That can be a problem for those receiving the blood, to suddenly get a blockage in a vein.

The fact is that what the Jws have done for over 50 years has made the care of patients safer. It is why you must give permission to have your child treated. There is also one benefit of their work for those who do take transfusions. It had driven down the cost of blood as corporations compete to get hospitals to buy from them.

Quality Alternatives to Transfusion
http://www.watchtower.org/e/hb/index.htm?article=article_03.htm

Answer 5

I don't even understand... maybe it was more pronounced when the AIDS scare started in the 80's , I don't know. I think fake blood was invented because of them.

About the sextuplets, sometimes the treatment can be more awful than what is being treated. Ppl can catch staph(can be a deadly infection) just because someone at a hospital didn't wash their hands properly after treating someone that had it and then went to another patient. There are alot of ways that ppl can become seriously ill or die in a hospital.

Answer 6

The Holy Scriptures at Acts 15:20,29 tell us to abstain from blood. Abstain means to avoid or shun voluntarily. Eating or drinking is not only done by way of mouth, if you are in a coma, how does the hospital administer food to you? By way of intravenous feeding, directly into your veins and blood, these foods are liquid proteins and fats that your body ingests by way of entry through your blood. What is blood? It is a protein and also contains lipids(fats)? Since any blood that is administered into you is foreign to your body, your body will veiw it as food and use it as such, different DNA and other items particular to it's donor. If your doctor told you to abstain from alcohol, would you say, well, he didn't say I couldn't inject it into my arm, that's not the same as drinking it? Blood is sacred and holy to God as life is in the blood. It is so precious that the blood of his Son washes away the sins of man that exercises faith in the spilled blood of Christ Jesus, so we would want to make that sacrifice seem worthless by using blood any other way. Doctors are in agreement that not using blood helps for a faster recovery from surgery, less chance of infections which leads to further complications, and avoids the chance of getting some other illness through blood, there are now at least 64 things they can use instead of blood, it is mainly about just keeping the volume up. There is big money in blood and that is why it is really still around, it really isn't about saving lives, there are many hospitals that now do bloodless surgeries. And really, in the end, it's about obedience to God.

Answer 7

There is now research indicating there is a difference in blood types, even between men and women, let alone the accepted norms of A, B,O... etc etc. Jehovah clearly stated that blood is scared, he isn't making rules up to watch humans die, it's mankind stubbornly refusing to see that their is much more safer options such as bloodless surgery. That is causing this controversy. Honest, God knows much more than we do, he allows time to pass to prove his ways are just.

Answer 8

Jehovah's Witnesses do not consume, donate or transfuse blood, because God Himself consistently made it clear for humans to "abstain from blood". God began with commanding Noah and his family to abstain from blood. (Gen. 9:4) He repeated this through the Mosaic law (Lev. 7:26, 27; 17:10, 11, 13, 14) and He continued to remind us through the pages of the New Testament. (Acts 15:28, 29; Acts 15:19, 20) This is because God has obviously attached a highly important moral principle to blood. (Lev. 17:11)

Because this command went as far back as Noah, Andrew Fuller, viewed by some as "perhaps the most eminent and influential of Baptist theologians," wrote:

"This, being forbidden to Noah, appears also to have been forbidden to all mankind; nor ought this prohibition to be treated as belonging to the ceremonies of the Jewish dispensation. It was not only enjoined before that dispensation existed, but was enforced upon the Gentile Christians by the decrees of the apostles, Acts XV. 20. . . . Blood is the life, and God seems to claim it as sacred to himself." - The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (1836), p. 751.

How Important is it to "Abstain From Blood"?

A close examination of the wording used at Acts 15:28, 29 shows how important it is for Christians to "abstain from blood":

"For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these ESSENTIALS ['these necessary things' - RSV]: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell." - Acts 15:28, 29 (NASB)

The wording of the Scriptures here does not indicate that this is a relatively unimportant commandment. It says it is "ESSENTIAL".

"Don't Jehovah's Witnesses Want to Live?"

The fact that Jehovah's Witnesses want to live is evidenced by their closely following the advances made in the field of bloodless medicine and surgery. There are endless examples and much documentation of their utilization of this.

Some critics of Jehovah's Witnesses have made false accusations concerning Jehovah's Witnesses' motivations in abstaining from blood. But would Jehovah's Witnesses REALLY be so eager to find quality, medical alternatives to blood transfusions for themselves and their children whom they deeply love if their refusal of blood was tantamount to a form of suicide or a "right to die" as some opposers falsely claim?

Christians who truly follow God's command to "abstain from blood" do not decline all therapies. They reject just one therapy, which even many experts admit come with dangers.

Also see:

Why don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses accept blood transfusions?
http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/jehovahs-witnesses-why-no-blood-transfusions/

Answer 9

Acts 15:19-21,28 is the Scripture Jehovah's Witnesses typically point to as the reason they refuse to accept blood donations. Acts 15:20 says, "Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood."

Answer 10

all the same though, the acceptance of blood is still on the individual to choose. (penalties to pay though lke not getting into heaven )