.:BLOOD TRANSFUSION SECRETS JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES ARE NOT TOLD: 12 Questions for Jehovah’s Witnesses on The Use of Blood
1. Does the Watchtower teach that “organ transplants” and “tissue transplants” can be acceptable to Jehovah’s Witnesses without violating Biblical principles?
“The Witnesses do not feel that the Bible comments direction on organ transplants; hence, decisions regarding cornea, kidney, or other tissue transplants must be made by the individual Witness.” —How Can Blood Save Your Life?, 1990, p. 28 (View PDF of this Page)
2. Does the Watchtower admit that “Blood is an organ of the body, and a blood transfusion is nothing less that an organ transplant.”—Awake! August 22, 1999, p. 31? (View PDF of this Page)
“When doctors transplant a heart, a liver, or another organ, the recipient’s immune system may sense the foreign tissue and reject it. Yet, a transfusion is a tissue transplant. Even blood that has been ‘properly’ cross matched can suppress the immune system.” — How Can Blood Save Your Life?, 1990, p. 8 (View PDF of this Page) .
3. If blood is an “organ” of the body and “nothing less” than a “tissue transplant” which Jehovah’s Witnesses accept, why do they still reject blood transfusions?
4. Are Jehovah’s Witnesses told by the Watchtower that accepting whole blood or a transfusion of any of the four primary components of blood (i.e., red cells; white cells; platelets; plasma) constitutes a violation of God’s Law on blood?
“Witnesses refuse transfusions of whole blood or of any of its four primary components.” —The Watchtower, June 15, 2004, p. 22 (View PDF of this Page)
“Today, most transfusions are not of whole blood but of one of its primary components: (1) red cells; (2) white cells; (3) platelets; (4) plasma (serum), the fluid part….Jehovah’s Witnesses hold that accepting whole blood or any of those four primary components violates God’s law.”—The Watchtower, June 15, 2000, p. 29 (View PDF of this Page)
5. Why then are Jehovah’s Witnesses told that all of the components that make up blood plasma are acceptable to take —even though whole plasma transfusions are not?
“The Main Components of Blood – Plasma: about 55 percent of the blood. It is 92 percent water; the rest is made up of complex proteins, such as globulins, fibrinogens, and albumin.”—Awake!, October 22, 1990, p. 1 (View PDF of this Page)
“Witnesses’ religious understanding does not absolutely prohibit the use of components such as albumin, immune globulins, and hemophiliac preparations.”—How Can Blood Save Your Life?, 1990, p. 27 (View PDF of this Page)
(Note: “Hemophiliac preparations” are made from “fibrinogens.” See Academic American Encyclopedia, vol. 17, p. 210 – View PDF of this page)
6. Does the Watchtower reason that fractions derived from primary blood components can be acceptable to Jehovah’s Witnesses on the basis that “plasma proteins (fractions) move from a pregnant woman’s blood to the separate blood system of her fetus.”—The Watchtower, June 15, 2004, p. 30? (View PDF of this Page)
“Do Jehovah’s Witnesses accept injections of a blood fraction, such as immune globulin or albumin? Some do….some substances from the plasma cross into the fetus’ circulation. Do plasma proteins, such as immune globulin and albumin? Yes, some do.”—The Watchtower, June 1, 1990, pp. 30-31? (View PDF of these Pages)
7. If factors of blood components are acceptable to Jehovah’s Witnesses on the basis that plasma factors cross from mother to baby in the womb, why does the Watchtower claim that transfusions of white blood cells are unacceptable—given the research that white blood cells pass from mother to baby in the mother’s milk?
“The most important members of the white cell family are the granulocytes, lymphocytes, and monocytes.”—Encyclopedia Americana International Edition, vol. 4, 1999ed., p. 92 (View PDF of this page)
“Both T- and B-lymphocytes are present in the human milk and colostrum and are part of the immunologic system in human milk.”—Breastfeeding – A Guide for the Medical Profession,4th edition, by Ruth A. Lawrence (Mosby – Year Book, Inc 1994), p. 154 (View PDF of this page)
8. Does the Watchtower claim that Jehovah’s Witnesses disallow the use of autotransfusion (having their own blood stored for later use) because they believe that once blood is out of the body it should be disposed of?
“Do Jehovah’s Witnesses allow the use of autologous blood (autotransfusion), such as by having their own blood stored and later put back into them?…Jehovah’s Witnesses, though, DO NOT accept this procedure. We have long appreciated that such stored blood certainly is no longer part of the person. It has been completely removed from him, so it should be disposed of in line with God’s Law: ‘You should pour it out upon the ground as water.’-Deuteronomy 12:24″ —The Watchtower, March 1, 1989, p. 30 (View PDF of this Page)
9. Why then are hemophiliac Jehovah’s Witnesses told that it is not a violation of God’s blood Law to take transfusions of Factor VIII pooled from stored blood?
“…some 70 million units of concentrated Factor VIII are imported from the United States and are used to treat British haemophiliacs. Each batch of Factor VIII is made from plasma that is pooled from as many as 2,500 blood donors.”—The Watchtower, June 15, 1985, p. 30 (View PDF of this Page)
“Witnesses’ religious understanding does not absolutely prohibit the use of components such as…hemophiliac preparations….”—How Can Blood Save Your Life?, 1990, p. 27 (View PDF of this Page)
“What, however, about accepting serum injections to fight against disease, such as are employed for diphtheria, tetanus, viral hepatitis, rabies, hemophilia, and RH incompatibility? This seems to fall into a ‘gray area.’…their conscience would permit such.”—The Watchtower, June 15, 1978, pp. 30-31 (View PDF of these Pages)
10. Since the Jehovah’s Witnesses permit the use of Factor VIII derived from stored blood, why does the Watchtower claim that donating one’s blood violates God’s Law?
“…since God’s Word indicates that it is wrong to take a blood transfusion, it is also wrong to give one’s blood for transfusion.” —The Watchtower, September 15, 1961, p. 561 (View PDF of this Page)
11. If the penalty for violating God’s Law on blood requires the death of the person, why did Jehovah let the Israelite people who violated His Blood Law live at 1 Samuel 14:31-34? If God intended His command to “abstain…from blood” in Acts 15:28-29 to apply to human blood transfusions (rather than just prohibiting the eating of blood from sacrificial animals), why is there no mention of blood transfusions anywhere in the Bible? When we consider the fact that evidence exists for the practice of blood being transferred from a healthy person to an old or sick person as early as “two thousand years before Christ,” why is Scripture silent about this practice and only mentions the physical eating of blood?
“Blood transfusion makes its entre’e – The idea of using blood from a health person to transfer youth and vitality to an old or sick one is very ancient. It existed in Egyptian medicine as early as two thousand years before Christ. Similar speculations are found in classical antiquity, as with Ovid: Draw only the swords and quick, the changed blood drains from his body – I fill his veins with the younger…” —The Illustrated History of Surgery, by Knut Haeger, 1988, 1990ed., p. 135 (View PDF of this Document)
12. According to a 1999 Consumer Report, what is the “risk” of infection from a two-unit blood transfusion?
“As the chart shows, the likelihood of infection from a two-unit blood transfusion is substantially less than the chance of being murdered or of being killed in an auto accident during the year… That change reflects an impressive improvement in the blood supply. In 1983 the AIDS virus was present in as many as 1 out of 100 units of blood. Today the odds are an estimated 1 in 676,000. Hepatitis C contamination has fallen from a similarly high prevalence to about 1 in 103,000 units… Transfusions save nearly 10,000 lives a day…” —Consumer Reports, September 1999, pp. 61-63 (View PDF of this Page)
For Additional Information See:
WHY JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES DIE RATHER THAN ACCEPT A BLOOD TRANSFUSION
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