Why Can't Jehovah's Witnesses Accept Blood Transfusions?

Before I begin this, I must point out that I am not a Jehovah's Witness. If you have followed my relatively brief career as a content producer for Associated Content, you know that I am Ex-Mormon. However, after doing several articles about things like artificial blood I wondered what the theological basis is for a Jehovah's Witness doctrine. I refer to the well-known idea that the religion does not let is members receive blood transfusions.

While I have tried to find reasonably accurate information from a neutral sight or at least a pro-Jehovah's Witness site because they tend to be more accurate about what the current beliefs are, a warning should be issued that comes from my own experience in trying to track down real Mormon history. With any religion there are people with an agenda on both sides more than willing to make up the facts to pursue their own agenda. My prescription to remedy this is you take my research into the issue cum granis salis.

The verse the theological point is based on reads in the New International Version of the BibleYou are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

While blood itself seems to be taboo and results from their interpretation of a verse in Acts, seperate blood components are allowed. Further confusing the issue is that the Watchtower, the society that looks over the Jehovah's Witness organization as a whole has ruled that the components of blood that go through the placenta during birth can be passed on, with the reasoning being that Jehovah would not break his own law. Why only certain components are allowed is a bit of a mystery since all blood components pass through the placental barriers.

As more restrictions on what are allowed are lifted, it seems likely that the decision will eventually be overturned. However, although medical professionals have questioned the Watchtower on the ruling as well as members of the Hospital Liaison committee the response has been simply not to question it.

Whether or not it is feeding on blood as the decision was based on is open to debate. It is true that the blood that gets transfused will be rejected by the body's immune system within several days, but by that time the body should have reproduced its own cells to fill the gap left by loss of blood caused by an accident. In the meantime, many Jehovah's Witnesses have lost their lives because of this point of their theology.

It will be likely that the stance will change slowly as the Watchtower and the Jehovah's Witness catch up with medical research as a whole, or artificial blood products go into wide spread use and make the whole debate unnecessary. Given that religious organizations are generally slow to change their viewpoints, the latter seems more likely.

Sources:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+15:29

http://www.ajwrb.org/basics/abstain.shtml