2002 Handout on Blood

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Below is my copy of a now very rare handout[1] provided by Watchtower to Hospital Liaison Committee members for their own use and to distribute for others to use as needed.

Hemoglobin

This handout represents the earliest printed form of evidence out of Watchtower specifying hemoglobin-based oxygenation agents as something that, under Watchtower’s blood doctrine, Jehovah’s Witnesses could accept as a personal decision free of the threat of Watchtower’s organized communal shunning policy.

Prior to year 2000 Watchtower doctrine prohibited Witnesses from accepting a blood substitute “which contained a major component of blood such as … hemoglobin”.[2-3]

As of year 2000 Watchtower doctrine changed so that Witnesses were no longer prohibited from accepting a blood substitute which contained the major component of blood known as hemoglobin. Though not expressed in explicit terms, in year 2000 in an article contained in its principle publication Watchtower’s presentation contained this change in implicit terms.[4]

It was year 2006 before Watchtower made its change in position crystal clear for the general population of Jehovah’s Witnesses in one of its secondary publications by specifically citing acceptance of hemoglobin based oxygenation agents as a matter to be determined by the individual Witnesses rather than Watchtower doctrine.[5] By that time the altered doctrinal position went virtually unnoticed as change by the greater community of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Plasma

The handout above also contains an admission that, so far as I know, is not found anywhere else in printed documents distributed by Watchtower. It presents the fact that the product known as cryoprecipitate contains plasma. This piece of information, small though it may seem, shows Watchtower’s blood doctrine is not true to itself in “a very small matter”.[6-7] Watchtower tells everyone that Witnesses refuse transfusion of plasma.[8] But this is a false claim as shown by admission of the 2002 handout document. It is also false for other, perhaps even greater reason.[9]

Marvin Shilmer
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References:

1. In year 2002 along with this handout Watchtower also provided the following to its Hospital Liaison Committee members. This is the first Watchtower originating illustration rendering its year-2000 vintage blood doctrine:

2. “At present, the number of Jehovah’s Witnesses and their associates in Japan is about 380,000. There are more than 2,000,000 in the United States, and about 13,000,000 in the world, increasing at the rate of about 4.4 percent per year…. What kind of blood substitutes do Jehovah's Witnesses accept? They make a decision in this regard based on the above mentioned principles. They would not accept a blood substitute which contained a major component of blood such as red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, plasma or hemoglobin. However, as to a blood substitute which contained a minor blood derivative such as a1bUl:n.in, immune globulins, or clotting factors, each individual Jehovah's Witness would decide whether to accept it or not.”—(Richard Bailey and Tomonoro Ariga, The View of Jehovah's Witnesses on Blood Substitutes, Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Immobilization Biotechnology, 1998, Vol. 26 Numbers 5 and 6, p. 573. Authors Bailey and Ariga are Jehovah’s Witnesses working for the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society in its Hospital Information Services department.)

3. Malak J, Jehovah's Witnesses and Medicine: An Overview of Beleifs and Issues in Their Care, Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, November 1998, Vol. 87, pp. 322-327. Dr. Joseph Malak is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

4. The Watchtower, June 15, 2000, pp. 29-31.

5. Awake, published by Watchtower, August 2006, p. 11.

6. “‘Well done, good slave! Because in a very small matter you have proved yourself faithful, hold authority over ten cities.’” —(Luke 19:17, NWT)

7. “The person faithful in what is least is faithful also in much, and the person unrighteous in what is least is unrighteous also in much.”—(Luke 16:10)

8. “…Jehovah’s Witnesses do not accept transfusions of… plasma…”—(The Watchtower, June 15, 2004, p. 23)

9. See the article Plasma, Cryoprecipitate and Cryosupernatant