For over 100 years, Jehovah’s Witnesses have not believed in blood transfusions. They believe the consumption of blood, not matter how that is done, is eating blood. Acts 15:28-29 records a portion of a letter from the Jerusalem Council to the gentile churches, and Jehovah’s Witnesses understand that to mean no blood consumption of any kind.
Acts 15:28-29 (ESV) 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Human Blood:
Does the Bible’s prohibition include human blood? Yes, and early Christians understood it that way. Acts 15:29 says to “keep abstaining from . . . blood.” It does not say merely to abstain from animal blood. (Reasoning From the Scriptures, WTBTS, p. 72)
Even blood transfusions for your pets are against God’s Law:
How, then, must we answer the question, Would it be a violation of the Scriptures for a Christian to permit a veterinarian to give blood transfusions to a pet? By all means, to do so would be a violation of the Scriptures. (WT 2/15/64, p. 127)
Yet there’s Ex.22:31 (NWT): “You should prove yourselves holy people to me,+ and you must not eat the flesh of anything in the field that has been torn by a wild animal.+ You should throw it to the dogs.”
Even allowing leeches to draw blood is forbidden:
However, though leeches parasitically feed on blood in their natural state at present, it would not be proper for a Christian to permit leeches to draw his blood. Even where this was urged for medical reasons and the leeches would later be disposed of, the use of leeches would involve deliberately feeding blood to these creatures. That would conflict with the Bible’s indication that blood, being sacred and representing life, should be disposed of if it is removed from a body. (WT 6/15/82 p. 31)
While the word “animal” does not appear in Acts 15:29, it does speak of eating animals and not to eat those who had not had the blood drained. The Watchtower chooses to ignore that and, as a result, many JWs have died because of it. Blood transfusions are a perfectly safe, moral, and Christian medical procedure. (See also the page on Organ Transplants)
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