Since blood transfusions are not taking blood through the mouth how does this go against the Bible injunction?
The Watchtower society offers two defenses to this: First, that a blood transfusion is nutrition to the body which makes it the same as eating blood. However, is blood a nutrient like food? Why is it that a doctor would prescribe a blood transfusion? Is it because a patient is malnourished and needs a good meal? Of course not. He orders the transfusion because the patient lacks the ability to transport oxygen to his cells in sufficient quantity. If a person was in a coma and could not eat, would they survive longer if they had regular blood transfusions? No. Without additional nutrients such as sugar, carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, electrolytes, and trace elements, they would still starve to death in the same amount of time even with blood transfusions. This proves that, rather than a nutrient, blood is merely a carrier of nutrients throughout body. For example, your hand serves the function of bringing food to your mouth. But no one feeds on his fingers in the process!
The second defense is in a strict reliance on the word “abstain” in Acts 15:21. The following illustration appears in Reasoning from the Scriptures:
“Consider a man who is told by his doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?” Reasoning from the Scriptures p.73
“If I, as your physician, told you to abstain from meat, would it would be wrong for you to receive a kidney transplant?”
But, in reality, alcohol is a food and when a person drinks alcohol it is absorbed directly into the bloodstream. When it is injected directly into ones veins it is carried by the blood system and is absorbed as food. On the other hand, when a person drinks blood, it is not absorbed directly into the bloodstream, but is broken down and digested as food. When blood is introduced directly into the veins as a transfusion, it is not absorbed as food. It circulates and functions as blood. The body does not feed on the blood. So a blood transfusion is not the same as drinking blood.
When presented with this reasoning, one doctor responded: “If I, as your physician, told you to abstain from meat, would it would be wrong for you to receive a kidney transplant? If I said abstain from alcohol, does that mean I should object to some medical use of alcohol to preserve your life?” Granted, in this scenario, we would be able to ask the doctor if the medical procedure would be permissible. The Bible does not comment on the medical use of blood. But does that allow men to speak for God and dictate for others how they should proceed? (2 Cor. 1:24; 1 Pet. 5:3; Romans 14:4-12)
In an article on the risks of blood transfusion, the Clinical Excellence Commission, New South Wales (Australia) Health, states: “A blood transfusion is a living tissue transplant. With any transplant the human body is innately primed to react to something foreign. The safety implications of this are significant.” -Awake August 15, 2015 pg. 15
Consider the Reasoning book analogy another way: “Consider a man who is told by his doctor that he must abstain from meat. Would this mean that he could not accept a kidney transplant?” Obviously, eating a kidney is not the same as having one transplanted. A blood transfusion is actually a tissue transplant. The society realizes this[1] and organ transplants are permitted[2]. Many Jehovah’s Witnesses are unaware that for decades organ transplants[3], along with vaccinations[4], were condemned by the Society. Vaccinations as useless, even poisonous, a violation of God’s law, and a tool of the Devil[5] and transplants as cannibalistic! In the past they had even appealed to certain doctors to support their ideas that a blood transfusion is eating. For example this appeared in the September 15, 1961 Watchtower:
“It is of no consequence that the blood is taken into the body through the veins instead of the mouth. Nor does the claim by some that it is not the same as intravenous feeding carry weight. The fact is that it nourishes or sustains the life of the body. In harmony with this is a statement in the book Hemorrhage and Transfusion, by George W. Crile, A.M., M.D., who quotes a letter from Denys, French physician and early researcher in the field of transfusions. It says: ‘In performing transfusion it is nothing else than nourishing by a shorter road than ordinary – that is to say, placing in the veins blood all made in place of taking food which only turns to blood after several changes.’” (The Watchtower, Sept. 15, 1961, p. 558)
Notice that the magazine describes Denys as an early researcher. How early? Jean Baptiste Denys, lived in the 17th century! And Crile’s book Hemorrhage and Transfusion: An Experimental and Clinical Research had been published in 1909 and could not by any stretch of the imagination have been considered an authoritative medical text in 1961. Medical science long ago abandoned this idea. Why has the society found no support for this peculiar idea among more recent medical experts? Because there are none. Not even the medical doctors who are themselves Jehovah’s Witnesses will ruin their reputation by supporting this claim. The simple fact is that a blood transfusion is an organ transplant, not nutrition! How many Jehovah’s Witnesses died because of those now rejected policies?
Why else would a person accept a kidney, liver or bone marrow transplant if not to sustain the life of the body? It was unnecessary for Acts chapter 15 to include a prohibition against cannibalism. Such a thing was already shocking to people living at the time. (John 6:51-60)
Why then, don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses ban organ transplants? Because the Bible does not comment on the medical use of human tissue.
While the Bible specifically forbids consuming blood, there is no Biblical command pointedly forbidding the taking in of other human tissue. For this reason, each individual faced with making a decision on this matter should carefully and prayerfully weigh matters and then decide conscientiously what he or she could or could not do before God. It is a matter for personal decision. (Gal. 6:5) The congregation judicial committee would not take disciplinary action if someone accepted an organ transplant. (The Watchtower March 15, 1980 pg. 31)
However, the Bible does not comment on the medical use of blood either. It is therefore inconsistent for the organization to ban blood transfusions as a means of sustaining the life.
Is it moral for the society to insist on policies and interpretations that result in the deaths of loyal Christians when those views may one day change, as have the policies on organ transplants and vaccinations? Wouldn’t that render the organization blood guilty?
The organization’s reasoning has gone so far as to contradict it’s own teachings so as to make the point that a blood transfusion is feeding on blood. Note how this is stated in a 1961 Watchtower:
“God’s law definitely says that the soul of man is in his blood. Hence the receiver of the blood transfusion is feeding upon a God-given soul as contained in the blood vehicle of a fellow man or of fellow men. This is a violation of God’s commands to Christians, the seriousness of which should not be minimized by any passing over of it lightly as being an optional matter for the conscience of any individual to decide upon. The decree of the apostles at Jerusalem declares: “If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper.” Hence a Christian who deliberately receives a blood transfusion and thus does not keep himself from blood will not prosper spiritually. According to the law of Moses, which set forth shadows of things to come, the receiver of a blood transfusion must be cut off from God’s people by excommunication or disfellowshiping.”[6]
But from the time of C. T. Russell it was taught that man does not possess a soul, he is a soul. The following appeared in a 1971 article:
“In fact, it was often written that Russell took the fire out of hell. He proved from the Scriptures that man does not have a soul, but that he is a soul and that when man dies he goes into the common grave of mankind and there he remains until the resurrection of the dead to a paradise earth.”[7]
How then is it possible, by taking a blood transfusion, for a person to feed on a soul?
Hence, it is clear that the very reason blood transfusions were declared unscriptural in the first place was based on a misconception. (For more information see the article Evolution of the Watchtower Blood Policy.)
Later, in the mid 1960’s, when they came to appreciate that blood transfusions are not a “feeding on blood,” they were faced with a dilemma. To get around this problem they began referring to blood transfusions, not as eating blood, but as a sustaining of one’s life by means of blood.[8] This is an unwarranted insertion of a concept that is not scriptural. It also is not possible for one to sustain one’s life by drinking blood. So the command about blood had nothing to do with sustaining one’s life by means of it. The word ‘abstain’ must be read in the historical and scriptural context it appears, to mean ‘eaten’ in the natural sense. Even if the society could prove that taking blood intravenously means the blood is food, that still wouldn’t transgress the Biblical command, because the blood has not been ‘eaten.’
[1] (See How Can Blood Save Your Life, 1990, p. 8; Awake August 15, 2015 pg. 15)
[2] (See Blood Transfusions-How Safe? Pg. 8; The Watchtower March 15, 1980 pg. 31; The Watchtower May 15, 1984 pg. 31)
[3] (See The Watchtower November 15, 1967 p. 702).
[4] (See The Golden Age April 24, 1935 p. 471).
[5] (See The Golden Age, January 3, 1923, p. 214; The Golden Age May 1, 1929 page 502; The Golden Age 02/04/1931 p. 293; The Golden Age 03/27/1935 p. 409
[6] The Watchtower January 15, 1961 pg. 64
[7] The Watchtower January 1, 1971 pg. 22 par. 54
[8] (See The Watchtower November 15, 1964 pg. 680 par 4)