By Paul Joseph
Jehovah’s Witnesses have announced a significant adjustment to their long-standing position on blood, allowing individual members to decide whether to accept or donate four major blood components based on personal conscience.
The organisation said the new position covers red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma and platelets, giving members the responsibility to make their own decisions regarding their use in medical treatment.
The development was announced in a statement issued by the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses at its World Headquarters in Warwick, New York, and published on the organisation’s official website on Friday.
According to the organisation, accepting red cells, white cells, plasma or platelets from another person’s blood is now considered a matter of individual conscience.
Members may also decide whether to donate blood specifically for the purpose of producing components or fractions that could be used to treat another person.
However, Jehovah’s Witnesses stressed that the adjustment does not change its long-standing position against whole-blood transfusions.
“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 World Headquarters, said the group continues to regard blood and human life as sacred.
“Blood remains sacred to Jehovah’s Witnesses, who continue to regard life and blood as precious gifts from God,” Gillies said.
He explained that decisions concerning blood components are matters of personal conscience between individual Witnesses and God.
The organisation said the latest clarification builds on previous explanations concerning blood fractions and procedures involving a member’s own blood.
“Since the Bible does not comment on such decisions, they are a matter of individual conscience. That same reasoning has now been extended to the four main components of blood,” it said.
Jehovah’s Witnesses also reiterated that they seek medical treatment and do not practise faith healing.
The organisation said its members value life and seek quality medical care from doctors who can provide effective treatment while respecting their religious beliefs, values and personal wishes.
Gillies added that local congregations would not interfere with individual decisions regarding the four 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 latest clarification follows an earlier adjustment concerning the use of a member’s own blood during surgery and other medical procedures.
Under that position, individual Witnesses can decide whether their own blood may be removed, stored and returned to them during treatment, while the organisation’s position against receiving blood from another person remains unchanged.
Jehovah’s Witnesses said the religious organisation has more than nine million members across more than 200 countries and territories.
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