The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses has announced that members may now decide, based on personal conscience, whether to accept or donate the four main components of blood.
The organisation disclosed this in a statement issued by its World Headquarters in Warwick, New York, and published on its website on Friday.
According to the statement, each Witness may personally decide whether to accept red cells, white cells, plasma or platelets from another person’s blood.
It also stated that members must individually decide whether to donate blood specifically for the purpose of providing components or fractions for use by another person.
The organisation said its position on whole-blood transfusion had not changed.
“The long-standing refusal of whole-blood transfusions on religious grounds, a core teaching based on the command to ‘abstain from blood’ (Acts 15:20), is unchanged,” the statement said.
International spokesperson for Jehovah’s Witnesses at the organisation’s World Headquarters, Paul Gillies, said blood remained sacred to Jehovah’s Witnesses, who continue to regard life and blood as precious gifts from God.
“We recognise that medical decisions involving blood components are a matter of conscience between each Witness and their God, Jehovah,” Gillies said.
The organisation said the adjustment followed earlier updates regarding blood fractions and the use of an individual’s own blood during medical procedures.
It explained that since the Bible does not specifically address decisions concerning blood components, such matters are left to individual conscience. The same reasoning has now been extended to the four main components of blood.
On medical care, the organisation said Jehovah’s Witnesses love life and seek the best available medical treatment. It said members do not practise faith healing but seek doctors who can provide effective treatment in accordance with their wishes, values and beliefs.
Gillies said local congregations would not interfere in members’ personal medical decisions.
“Congregations do not involve themselves in personal decisions that rest with the individual conscience. We will continue to respect and support the personal decisions of our fellow believers,” he said.
He also expressed appreciation for physicians who provide medical care that respects Jehovah’s Witnesses’ wishes regarding blood.
The organisation said Jehovah’s Witnesses number more than nine million worldwide, with congregations across more than 200 countries and territories.
In March, the group clarified its position on the use of a member’s own blood during surgery and other medical procedures. The clarification allowed individual Witnesses to decide whether their blood could be removed, stored and returned to them during treatment, while maintaining the organisation’s position against receiving blood from another person.