If a Jehovah's witness died???????

Question

If a Jehovah's witness died because he/she rejected a blood transfusion, would that be considered a suicide?

Don't forget to star me.

I'm asking this because I heard of a lady in the U.K, whom had just given birth to twins, lost a lot of blood, refused a blood transfusion, and ended up dying. I think that in cases like this, your children should come before your religion. Two beautiful children without a Mother.

Answer 1

Death is unnatural, and saddens every reasonable person. It seems crass, however, to turn a tragic death into a platform for one's opinionated rantings.


This tragedy occurred nearly two weeks ago, on October 25, 2007. Despite what pro-blood activists and anti-Witness critics might pretend, her doctors informed the family that Mrs. Gough would have died even if she had received blood transfusions.

That's little consolation, but it is unsurprising.

During a hemorrhagic event, artificial expanders almost always work better than blood itself at keeping veins and arteries from collapsing. In addition, targeted treatment of specific blood fractions is considered preferable to old-fashioned "throw everything at it and see what sticks" thinking of whole blood transfusions. Of course, Jehovah's Witnesses generally accept artificial products and fractions derived from plasma, platelets, and red/white cells.

Since Jehovah's Witnesses only refuse whole blood and its four major components, doctors still have many many proven products and techniques. In fact, many or most doctors have come to prefer these products and techniques for ALL their patients.


It is not Jehovah's Witnesses who decide that blood is sacred. It is Almighty God who declares it so, as the Divine Author of the Holy Bible!

As God's spokesman and as Head of the Christian congregation, Jesus Christ made certain that the early congregation reiterated, recorded, and communicated renewed Christian restrictions against the misuse of blood.

Jehovah's Witnesses are not anti-medicine or anti-technology, and they do not have superstitious ideas about some immortal "soul" literally encapsulated in blood. Instead, as Christians, the Witnesses seek to obey the very plain language of the bible regarding blood.

As Christians, they are bound by the bible's words in "the Apostolic Decree". Ironically, this decree was the first official decision communicated to the various congregations by the twelve faithful apostles (and a handful of other "older men" which the apostles had chosen to add to the first century Christian governing body in Jerusalem). God and Christ apparently felt (and feel) that respect for blood is quite important.

Here is what the "Apostolic Decree" said, which few self-described Christians obey or even respect:

(Acts 15:20) Write them [the various Christian congregations] to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.

(Acts 15:28-29) For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, 29 to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper.


Quite explicitly, the Apostolic Decree plainly forbids the misuse of blood by Christians (despite the fact that nearly every other provision of former Jewish Mosaic Law was recognized as unnecessary). It seems odd therefore, that literally one Christian religion continues to teach that humans must not use blood for any purpose other than honoring Almighty God.

A better question would ask: How can other self-described Christian religions justify the fact that they don't even care if their adherents drink blood and eat blood products?


Jehovah's Witnesses recognize the repeated bible teaching that blood is specially "owned" by God, and must not be used for any human purpose. Witnesses do not have any superstitious aversion to testing or respectfully handling blood, and Witnesses believe these Scriptures apply to blood and the four primary components which approximate "blood". An individual Jehovah's Witness is likely to accept a targeted treatment for a targeted need, including a treatment which includes a minor fraction derived from plasma, platelets, and/or red/white blood cells.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/hb/index.htm?article=article_07.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/vcnb/article_01.htm

Answer 2

just know that JW's aren't the only ones who reject blood transfusions, I recently dealt with this excellent facility:

http://www.englewoodhospital.com/medservices.cfm?pageid=162

they specialize in every type of surgery and can do them w/o the use of blood. I was told by doctors at Hopkins and Mt. Siani that my procedure just could not be done w/o a transfusion. But when you find a skilled confident surgeon who has been educated and trained to do what they have to do to minimize blood loss during surgery, it is possible.

If a JW dies b/c they reject a transfusion it is not suicide, we as JW's have learned about the sanctity of blood from what the Bible has to say, and do what we have to to obey what the scriptures say. The previous answers have quoted the scriptures very well.

Even when people are given blood, it doesn't always solve the problem, and it makes the body take longer to heal. Hospitals give out blood like its candy and really should find ways to minimize blood loss and keep the patient healthy. There are many blood expanders that should be utilized at all facilities.

Answer 3

Most atheists will side with Jehovah'w Witnesses on this one, I find it funny how most atheists know more about God (yet choosing to ignore his existence) than those who profess to know God. By your wording the only option available is to simply doesn't exist. The teaching of hell fire has absolutely zero basis in the Bible so that option is out. God has only prepared a place in heaven for a finite number of spirit anointed individuals, I am not on that list. The only option for me is to be comfortable with the fact that I am in God's memory and when the appointed time comes he will bring me back to life. I don't see how this concept of ceasing to exist is really that hard to comprehend. You weren't alive before your conception, so why is it that hard to figure out that the logical progression of death would leave you in the same state as Genesis 3:19 clearly states. It's all a matter of having faith that Jehovah God will take care of us and there is no safer place than his memory.

Answer 4

No. It is not suicide. I don't answer a lot of questions on this thing, but as one of Jehovah's Witnesses there is nothing that makes me madder than someone calling our beliefs stupid. (I am NOT referring to you) As a people we know that everyone has a different religion and we RESPECT that. At Acts 15: 28-29 it mentions that we should abstain from blood. The mother in the UK did this, and by doing this she listened to what GOD commanded. She also believed in the FACT that our heavenly father would remember her and resurrect her in the new system. This resurrection can be found at John 11:25. I don't know what hospital she went to, but here in the US there are hospitals that cater specifically to bloodless surgeries. You can also note that these are some of the safest surgeries performed especially since blood is tainted. Did you know it could take up to five years for diseases in blood to be found out? With someone elses blood you don't know what is going in your body so abstaining from blood is actually a safeguard for us. Unfortunately for the woman in the UK she died (IDK if a bloodless surgery was performed or not), but bloodless surgeries have a soaring success rate. Nobody on yahoo answers is going to be able to answer your question fully, so next time a Witness comes to your house ask them to explain this in better terms. You don't even have to invite them back, but I would much rather you hear the correct answer than to base it on someone who has little understanding of our principles. There is even a movie on bloodless surgeries that we offer free of charge. It is a documentary type movie. Hope this helps!!!! Chau Bella.

Answer 5

No, it would not be considered suicide because the injury was not self-inflicted with the intention of causing death.

However, it is highly questionable whether there is a valid biblical basis for dying of blood loss when safe transfusions are readily available.
In Colossians, Jesus said of such practices: "Those very things are, indeed, possessed of an appearance of wisdom in a self-imposed form of worship and [mock] humility, a severe treatment of the body; but they are of no value in combating the satisfying of the flesh." So, denying blood transfusions do not demonstrate a mastery over the flesh.

In Matthew, Jesus makes a similar statement, telling Christians that "Not what enters into [his] mouth defiles a man; but it is what proceeds out of [his] mouth that defiles a man.”"
These are both taken directly from the New World Translation of the Bible, which is used by Jehovah's Witnesses/

The idea that one should take a passage out of Acts that refers to the active consumption of animal blood and apply that to an intravenous blood transfusion seems rather anti-biblical.

Answer 6

You forget that God has the power to ressurrect those who are faithful to him.Jesus was prove of that.The consumption of blood was condemned in the book of Genesis(God's allowing Noah to eat meat required the draining of the blood.)Leviticus(Things that would render a person unclean) and the book of Acts(James letter to all congregations to avoid eating meat sacrificed to Idols,Blood and animals that were strangled and not bled.)In the Bible the blood represented the life of the animal that had been killed and the person had to pour it onto the ground and bury it.Thus giving the life of the animal back to God.We hold blood as highly sacred and the shedding of it requires divine justice,we are waiting for the time when God and his son Jesus will execute the wicked and judge all mankind once and for all.Suicide is the giving up of all hope a person has making death prefferable.We already have the hope of life in Paradise.Jesus promised this to the Murderer being executed next to him.Would you ask the butcher to give you meat for your family soaked in blood?Because YOU know that it would render the meat unfit to eat,many diseases are carried by blood that we can't detect properly,like Aids,Hepatitus,Typhoid,Malaria&Cholera.

Answer 7

The heart of your question reduces the situation to an either/or scenario. Rarely, if ever, is this the case. Yet the suggestion that "either you take a blood transfusion or you will die" persists. Why? Could it be because this is a hot-button topic and there are many who love to agitate the emotions? Could it be because so many are uninformed or ill-informed about modern medical procedures? Could it be because the media immediately reports on patients who have supposedly died because they refused blood transfusions, while simultaneously failing to report, either through ignorance or indolence, that literally hundreds of thousands of patients survive quite nicely without blood transfusions? Could it be that they fail to report that the growing trend is bloodless surgery; that there are dozens of non-blood medical centers throughout the country; that virtually any and every procedure can be done absolutely WITHOUT blood transfusions?

And what of the responses to these hot-button questions? Usually they are knee-jerk responses and usually they are the same: anyone who refuses a blood transfusion even though they will die is stupid, heartless, blinded, cultish, suicidal, and so on. You feel that "in cases like this, your children should come before your religion. Two beautiful children without a Mother." Again, the situation is being misstated. The heart of the matter is not one's religion. The heart of the matter is obedience to God – no matter the situation. You feel children should come before one's religion. True worshipers of God, however, feel that God should come before anything and anyone else. This is the point: obedience and loyalty to God – no matter the situation. If you truly feel that children should come before one's religion, should they also come before one's country? If that is so, then why do thousands and thousands of men and women who profess to be Christians leave their children behind to go engage in carnal warfare with the very real possibility that their children will be without a mother or a father? Do you feel that those soldiers who have died and left children behind were suicidal? Or stupid? Or heartless? Or cultish?

Think about this for a moment please: there are some 6.7 million Jehovah's Witnesses world-wide. Easily, hundreds of thousands of them have had some medical procedure which, according to doctors, required blood transfusions. Hundreds of thousands were told they would die without one. And hundreds of thousands did not have the transfusion and did not die. So if the "either/or" statement held any validity, there would not be some 6.7 million Witnesses alive. Hundreds of thousands would have died, would they not?

I have read some very interesting responses here; and one in particular. Acts 15:28-29 specifically commands followers to: "abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication. (King James Version). Is this command for a "sacrificial purpose" as one responding person feels? Where do we find such a qualification in this verse? We do not. Nowhere do we read here of the first century governing body (in Acts) explaining that this command is in reference to sacrifice only. As for fornication being included because of what the Israelites did with the golden calf, does that mean that it is okay to fornicate as long as it is not done for sacrificial purposes? Put another way, are we to believe that fornication is acceptable to God as long as it has no connection to idolatry or sacrifice? Never may that be so! How dangerous to believe such a thing! The plain meaning of this command is, well, quite plain: abstain from fornication. Abstain from blood. Abstain from eating strangled animals. (Because the blood coagulates in the body of the animal and it therefore cannot be properly bled). Abstain from idolatry. No questions, no concessions, and no ambiguity. Qualifications come in only when people wish to obviate the plain meaning. Qualifications come in only when people wish to circumvent this command and justify their subsequent behavior. God's word the Bible everywhere condemns the misuse of blood.

The core of true worship is obedience and loyalty to God. Period. That being so, the question is this: does God's word forbid the misuse of blood? The answer is yes. The next question is: do blood transfusions constitute a misuse of blood, scripturally speaking? The answer is yes. How do we know that? From countless scriptures, including, but not limited to, Acts 15 which commands, with undeniable specificity, that we abstain from blood. It does not qualify itself by saying, only under certain circumstances. All such qualifications are human reasoning but they have absolutely no basis in scripture. And since it is well-established that any surgery or procedure can be done WITHOUT the use of blood, it is disingenuous, at the very least of it, and deliberately deceptive, at the very worst of it, to suggest that all these situations are "either/or" situations – either you take blood or you die. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are only two uses espoused in the Bible concerning blood. Neither allows for transfusion.

Hannah J Paul

Answer 8

No, it’s not suicide because the mother did not want to die, simple as.

Do soldiers want to commit suicide when they go to war?

The question is:

When the hospital in that case was equipped with a Cell Saver machine (used in blood-less procedures), why was no member of staff trained to use it? The hospital staff wasn’t qualified to give her alternatives...and yet people are disgusted with the Jehovahs Witnesses? Funny how that part of the story never gets much attention.





In response to what vrkbarracuda said (about Acts 15:29 only referring to sacrifices) I'm going to restate some of the good answer that Hannah J Paul gave;

"Nowhere in Acts do we read that this command is in reference to sacrifice only. As for fornication being included because of what the Israelites did with the golden calf, does that mean that it is okay to fornicate as long as it is not done for sacrificial purposes? Put another way, are we to believe that fornication is acceptable to God as long as it has no connection to idolatry or sacrifice?...How dangerous to believe such a thing! The plain meaning of this command is, well, quite plain: abstain from fornication. Abstain from blood. Abstain from eating strangled animals. (Because the blood coagulates in the body of the animal and it therefore cannot be properly bled). Abstain from idolatry. No questions, no concessions, and no ambiguity."

Also, the scriptures that talks about what really counts with a person, is making the distinction between what is more important, i.e. obeying man made commands and parts of the Old Law OR the persons heart condition (what comes out of the mouth). So to say that it's ok to eat whatever because of that scripture is taking it out of context. With that faulty reasoning you could say that's as long as I'm a spiritual person (what comes out the mouth), I can excessively drink alcohol etc.

This scripture in Colossians (severe treatment of the body) is saying that giving yourself pain is not proof of being a Christian. This counsel was given because the people back then were doing almost Satanic forms of worship (cutting themselves to show how much they cared). This cannot be likened to a Christian refusing blood, because refusing blood is a command in the bible...it's not self-inflicted harm.

Answer 9

being a Dr witnessed 2 people in a 29 year carrier dying from refusing a blood transfusion..
blood is well screened nowadays from infections...... and is a lot cleaner than the air you breath that is full of organism, . although their choice is respected, it seemed quite a wrong choice, but every one has to make his choice...
there are many people who offer their blood and their organs to save people,, and nothing is wrong in organ donnation, it is god who gave us this intelligence to operate and treat..

Answer 10

The Foolishness of that is
as they takes Acts 15:28
and say a transfusion is a sin

its called NOT RIGHTLY dividing the WORD of TRUTH

is it any different then those who handle snakes
and say its of GOD ? as it is written in Mark 16:18

ONE MUST rightly divide the WORD of TRUTH
and quit doing things taught of man and thier traditions and follow GOD and HIS WORD

She died simply by DECIEVEMENT
same as many of the snake handlers have Done also

and they BOTH shall stand before a Righteous GOD
and know HIS TRUTHS , and they were decieved of man !!
and will be Judged Righteously by the TRUTH of HIS WORD