{"id":16265,"date":"2026-03-21T15:24:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T15:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=16265"},"modified":"2026-03-21T15:24:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T15:24:52","slug":"jehovahs-witnesses-ease-rules-on-blood-transfusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=16265","title":{"rendered":"Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses ease rules on blood transfusions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mobile-menu\">\n<div class=\"mobile-header\"><i class=\"fa fa-search\"><\/i><button class=\"icon icon--transparent navbar-toggler navbar-toggler-icon\" type=\"button\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" data-target=\"#navbarNavDropdown\" aria-controls=\"navbarNavDropdown\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"Toggle navigation\"><\/button>Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses has updated its policy on blood transfusions to allow members to have their own blood removed, stored, and &#8220;given back&#8221; in medical procedures.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"sbwrap\">\n<div class=\"mjo-body\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid nopadding position-relative\">\n<div class=\"container article-body\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-12 col-md-12 col-lg-8 col-xl-8\">\n<div id=\"article-text\" class=\"mt-3 article-text\">\n<p>While the change will enable members to have transfusions of their own blood &#8211; in planned surgeries, for example &#8211; they continue to be prohibited from receiving the blood of others.<\/p>\n<p>Gerrit Losch, part of the group&#8217;s leadership, announced the move saying &#8220;each Christian must decide for himself how his blood will be used in medical and surgical care&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses is a Christian-based religious movement, probably best known for its door-to-door evangelism. It claims 144,000 active members in the UK, and nine million worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The group has historically ruled that members cannot accept blood transfusions, as &#8211; according to the groups website &#8211; both the Old and New Testaments &#8220;command us to abstain from blood&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our core belief regarding the sanctity of blood remains unchanged,&#8221; a spokesperson for the group said.<\/p>\n<p>Some former members have criticised the move, saying it &#8220;doesn&#8217;t go far enough&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch Melon told the LA Times: &#8220;If one of Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses faces a medical emergency with significant blood loss, or if a child requires multiple transfusions to treat certain types of cancers, this policy change does not grant them complete freedom of conscience to accept potentially life-saving interventions involving donated blood&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In December last year, an Edinburgh court ruled doctors would be able to give a blood transfusion to a teenage Jehovah&#8217;s Witness if she needed one following an operation.<\/p>\n<p>The 14-year-old girl told medics she did not consent to a transfusion because of her religious beliefs, but lawyers for a Scottish health board sought an order to allow the procedure to go ahead if the girl&#8217;s life was at risk.<\/p>\n<p>The order was granted, as Judge Lady Tait said she was satisfied it was in the child&#8217;s best interests &#8220;giving appropriate weight to her views&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses has updated its policy on blood transfusions to allow members to have their own blood removed, stored, and &#8220;given back&#8221; in medical procedures. While the change will enable members to have transfusions of their own blood &#8211; in planned surgeries, for example &#8211; they continue to be prohibited from receiving the blood of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":16266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3504],"tags":[5145,5144],"class_list":["post-16265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-religion","tag-blood-transfusions","tag-jehovahs-witnesses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16265"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16268,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16265\/revisions\/16268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}