Jehovah's Witnesses Allow Members to Use Their Own Stored Blood During Surgery

The leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses has announced a revision to its long-standing medical guidance on blood transfusions, allowing members to store and receive their own blood for use during planned medical procedures.

Under the updated position, members may now have their blood removed in advance of surgery and later transfused back to them if needed. However, the group maintains its prohibition against receiving donated blood from other individuals.

The announcement was made by Gerrit Lösch, a member of the organisation’s governing leadership, who stated that decisions regarding how a person’s own blood is handled during treatment should be left to individual Christian conscience.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian religious movement widely recognised for its door-to-door evangelism, reports about 144,000 adherents in the United Kingdom and approximately nine million members globally.

Despite the adjustment, the organisation emphasised that its central belief about the sacredness of blood remains unchanged. According to its teachings, both the Old and New Testaments instruct believers to abstain from blood, forming the basis of its long-standing stance against donor transfusions.

Some former members have expressed concern that the revision does not go far enough. One critic, Mitch Melon, argued that the updated guidance still limits members facing emergencies involving severe blood loss or children requiring repeated transfusions for conditions such as certain cancers, as it does not permit the acceptance of donated blood even in life-threatening situations.

The policy discussion follows a recent legal development in Edinburgh, where a court ruled in December that doctors could administer a blood transfusion to a 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness if it became necessary after surgery. Although the teenager had declined the procedure based on her religious beliefs, lawyers representing a local health authority sought legal permission to proceed if her life were endangered.

The request was granted by Lady Tait, who determined that authorising the transfusion would be in the child’s best interests while still taking her views into consideration.

SOURCE: BBC