Autologous Blood Transfusion — Jehovah’s Witnesses

___

My experience within the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses leads me to believe most do not understand the Watchtower organization’s doctrinal position on transfusion of autologous blood.

Based on the doctrinal position wholly concocted and imposed onto the Witnesses population by the Watchtower organization, the mantras “No blood!” and “We refuse blood transfusion!” coming from this community is well known and documented. For decades this prohibition included autologous transfusion of blood.[1]

In year 2000 this changed so that transfusion of whole autologous blood could be conditionally accepted by Jehovah’s Witnesses without having Watchtower’s much feared shunning policy held over their head as a punitive threat. But the mantras “No blood!” and “We refuse blood transfusion!” remained, which is one reason why Jehovah’s Witnesses generally do not fully understand it is now false to claim that, as a doctrinal position, this patient population abstains from transfusion of whole blood.

As of October 2000 the doctrinal position of the Watchtower organization on transfusion of whole autologous blood looks like this[2-3]:

What does this mean?

It means that under Watchtower’s blood doctrine Jehovah’s Witnesses can accept transfusion of whole autologous blood so long as its extraction and later intravenous administration is part of what Watchtower broadly terms a “current therapy”. But nowhere does Watchtower define the nebulous period termed current therapy with a result that Witness patients are left free to exercise personal rationale based on discussion with their healthcare provider.

One of Jehovah’s Witnesses who works in the healthcare field co-authored an article depicting one instance of a therapy that Watchtower accepts under its provision of current therapy.[4]

This article depicts blood that is withdrawn from a patient, placed in a blood cooler for preservation and is then transfused during surgery or post-operative recovery. In this particular instance the method includes leaving the collection tubing connected to the patient, but this detail is not essential under Watchtower doctrine. Watchtower doctrine stipulates that “how his own blood will be handled in the course of a surgical procedure, medical test, or current therapy” is something “each Christian decides for himself”.[2-3]

Storage?

The position of Watchtower is made murky because another detail is that it forbids storing blood for transfusion.[5]

So on one hand Watchtower says blood that is withdrawn and preserved for sake of transfusion is left for the individual to decide to accept or reject, yet on the other hand Watchtower forbids storing of blood. So where is the line drawn? When is withdrawn blood “stored” and when is withdrawn blood something other than “stored”?

Under Watchtower doctrine a Witness patient may have blood withdrawn and held in preservation throughout whatever is the current therapy, including whatever recovery time is part and parcel to that therapy, and it is not forbidden under threat of Watchtower’s organized communal shunning program.

For reasons Watchtower never addresses its doctrine draws a distinction between blood that is withdrawn and held for transfusion within a given therapeutic period versus blood that it drawn and held for transfusion over multiple therapeutic periods. Where and how Watchtower draws this distinction based on biblical text is anyone’s guess.

Marvin Shilmer
______________
References

1. Blood Transfusion — No, Then Yes

2. The Watchtower, October 15, 2000, p. 31.

3. The Watchtower, December 15, 2000, p. 30.

4. Randy Henderson, Nickolas Jabbour et al., Live Donor Liver Transplantation Without Blood Products Strategies Developed for Jehovah’s Witnesses Offer Broad Application, Annals of Surgery, Vol. 240 No. 2, August 2004 pp. 350-357. (Co-author Randy Henderson is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses)

2. The Watchtower, October 15, 2000, p. 31.

___