---
title: "Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions"
chunk: 6/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah's_Witnesses_and_blood_transfusions"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:31:43.407186+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Selective use of information ===
Muramoto has claimed many Watch Tower Society publications employ exaggeration and emotionalism to emphasize the dangers of transfusions and the advantages of alternative treatments but present a distorted picture by failing to report any benefits of blood-based treatment. Nor do its publications acknowledge that in some situations, including rapid and massive haemorrhage, there are no alternatives to blood transfusions. He states that Watch Tower Society publications often discuss the risk of death as a result of refusing blood transfusions, but give little consideration to the prolonged suffering and disability, producing an added burden on family and society, that can result from refusal. Attorney and former Witness Kerry Louderback-Wood also claims that Witness publications exaggerate the medical risks of taking blood and the efficiency of non-blood medical therapies in critical situations.
Douglas E. Cowan, an academic in the sociology of religion, has claimed that members of the Christian countercult movement who criticize the Watch Tower Society make selective use of information themselves. For example, Christian apologist Richard Abanes wrote that their ban on blood transfusions "has led to countless Witness deaths over the years, including many children." Cowan wrote: "When the careful reader checks [Abanes' footnote], however, looking perhaps for some statistical substantiation, he or she finds only a statistical conjecture based on 1980 Red Cross blood use figures." Cowan also says Abanes omits "critical issues" in an attempt to "present the most negative face possible." Cowan wrote that "the reader is left with the impression that the Watchtower Society knowingly presides over a substantial number of preventable deaths each year."

=== Outdated medical beliefs ===
Osamu Muramoto says the Watch Tower Society relies on discarded, centuries-old medical beliefs to support its assertion that blood transfusions are the same as eating blood. The Watch Tower Society's 1990 brochure How Can Blood Save Your Life? quoted 17th-century anatomist Thomas Bartholin to support its view. Muramoto says the view that blood is nourishment—still espoused in Watch Tower publications—was abandoned by modern medicine many decades ago. He has criticized an analogy commonly used by the Society in which it states: "Consider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?" Muramoto says the analogy is false, explaining: "Orally ingested alcohol is absorbed as alcohol and circulated as such in the blood, whereas orally eaten blood is digested and does not enter the circulation as blood. Blood introduced directly into the veins circulates and functions as blood, not as nutrition. Hence, blood transfusion is a form of cellular organ transplantation. And ... organ transplants are now permitted by the WTS." He says the objection to blood transfusions on the basis of biblical proscriptions against eating blood is similar to the refusal of a heart transplant on the basis that a doctor warned a patient to abstain from eating meat because of his high cholesterol level.
David Malyon, chairman of the English Hospital Liaison Committee in Luton, England, has claimed that Muramoto's discussion of the differences between consuming blood and alcohol is pedantic and says blood laws in the Bible are based upon the reverence for life and its association with blood, and that laws should be kept in the spirit as much as in the letter.

=== Inconsistency ===

Muramoto has described as peculiar and inconsistent the Watch Tower policy of acceptance of all the individual components of blood plasma as long as they are not taken at the same time. He says the Society offers no biblical explanation for differentiating between prohibited treatments and those considered a "matter of conscience", explaining the distinction is based entirely on arbitrary decisions of the Governing Body, to which Witnesses must adhere strictly on the premise of them being Bible-based truth. He has questioned why white blood cells (1 per cent of blood volume) and platelets (0.17 per cent) are forbidden, yet albumin (2.2 per cent of blood volume) is permitted. He has questioned why donating blood and storing blood for autologous transfusion is deemed wrong, but the Watch Tower Society permits the use of blood components that must be donated and stored before Witnesses use them. He has questioned why Witnesses, although viewing blood as sacred and symbolizing life, are prepared to let a person die by placing more importance on the symbol than the reality it symbolizes.
Kerry Louderback-Wood says that by labeling the currently acceptable blood fractions as "minute" in relation to whole blood, the Watch Tower Society causes followers to misunderstand the scope and extent of allowed fractions.
The Watch Tower Society's response is that the real issue is not of the fluid per se, but of respect and obedience to God. They say their principle of abstaining from blood as a display of respect is demonstrated by the fact that members are allowed to eat meat that still contains some blood. As soon as blood is drained from an animal, the respect has been shown to God, and then a person can eat the meat even though it may contain a small amount of blood. Jehovah's Witnesses' view of meat and blood is different from that of kosher Jewish adherents, who go to great lengths to remove minor traces of blood.

== See also ==
Knocking, a documentary on Witnesses that features bloodless medicine.
The Children Act, a 2014 novel by Ian McEwan in which the issue is central to the plot
The Children Act, a 2017 film adaptation of the novel

== References ==