Blood transfusion

I'm writing about WTS's blood policy.

As for blood transfusions, don't you think that is a personal matter?
I think that each one can make own conscience decision in what treatment he or she should accept.

In this respect, it is not proper to make a rule for others so as to judge others by self-made-standard.

But, unfortunately the WTS is doing this.
I don't think it is right thing.

The composition of blood

Four primary components
1 Plasma (52-62% of the whole blood)
2 White blood cells (less than 1% of the whole blood)
3 Platelets (less than 1% of the whole blood)
4 Red blood cells (38-48% of the whole blood)

Then each major component is a source of various fractions.

Plasma contains
water 91.5%
proteins 7% (albumins, globulins, fibrinogen)
other substances 1.5% (nutrients, hormones, respiratory gases, electrolytes, vitamins, nitrogenous wastes)

Red blood cells contain
hemoglobin 33%
hemin less than 2%
others

White blood cells contain
Interferons
others

Platelets
At present, no fractions from platelets are being isolated for direct use in medical treatment.

Science and technology make it possible to identify and extract elements from blood through a process called fractionation.

In order to harvest fractions such as proteins, albumin, fibrinogen, and various globulins, a huge amount of blood has to be stored for the process of extraction of the fractions.

Do you notice that it already is a violation of a scriptural requirement, if you view the matter from the stand point of strict adherence of rule, forgetting the weightier matters like mercy, and saving a life.

Le 17:13-14
13 "'As for any man of the sons of Israel or some alien resident who is residing as an alien in YOUR midst who in hunting catches a wild beast or a fowl that may be eaten, he must in that case pour its blood out and cover it with dust. 14 For the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood by the soul in it. Consequently I said to the sons of Israel: "YOU must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood. Anyone eating it will be cut off."

De 12:16
16 Only the blood YOU must not eat. On the earth you should pour it out as water.

De 15:23
23 Only its blood you must not eat. Upon the earth you should pour it out as water.

Self-sacrificing spirit

Blood represents a soul doesn't it?
What is the profound way for us to show our love for others?

Is it not to use our soul for help others?

What did Jesus do for us?

Joh 15:13
13 No one has love greater than this, that someone should surrender his soul in behalf of his friends.

Joh 6:53-55
53 Accordingly Jesus said to them: "Most truly I say to YOU, Unless YOU eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, YOU have no life in yourselves. 54 He that feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life, and I shall resurrect him at the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 He that feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood remains in union with me, and I in union with him.

Jesus used his soul symbolized by blood to rescue us from dying condition.
It was a demonstration of his profound love for us, was it not?

If it is loving to use blood in such a manner, we can understand those who use blood to rescue their own child from emergency situation can't we?

In a moral sense, blood transfusions in emergency situations seem emotionally okay.
Most blood transfusion are operated with blood fractions such as albumins, globulins, fibrinogen, and the like.

People use serum to neutralize the venom of the poisonous serpents, and use blood fractions to fight viruses and diseases or to help blood to clot in order to stop bleeding.

However, blood transfusion like other medical treatments comes along with its risks such as contaminated blood and so on.

So, people can consider bloodless surgery or other alternative treatments.

Medical treatments including blood transfusion are a matter of personal choice.

People should not be judged in such a personal matter.

But, the WTS imposes a religious sanction upon those who don't come along with their interpretation of Medical use of blood.

I don't think they have authority to do so.

Ro 14:4-5, 10, 22
4 Who are you to judge the house servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God can make him stand.
5 . . . let each [man] be fully convinced in his own mind.

10 But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you also look down on your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God;

22 The faith that you have, have it in accord with yourself in the sight of God. Happy is the man that does not put himself on judgment by what he approves.

The WTS's policy of blood transfusion has changed several times. Considering those who lost their life due to the policy of the WTS, the WTS is accountable for the life of such people. Their way to guide people is confusing. They shouldn't make any rule in the field of personal choice, since they are not the master over our faith.

But they act as if they are the master over our faith in making and imposing needless rules and in judging others by their interpretation or standards.

Because of that, they tend to condemn guiltless ones by their self-standards.

Mt 12:7
7 However, if YOU had understood what this means, 'I want mercy, and not sacrifice,' YOU would not have condemned the guiltless ones.

The WTS's approach to the blood issue

The WTS's approach to the blood issue is from a standpoint of observing rules, but not a standpoint of life-saving measure.

Their reasoning lacks coherence, because they allow fractions of blood, on the other hand condemn whole blood or primary components of blood from which the fractions are extracted. And in order to get the fractions, massive amounts of blood have to be stored.

In effect, the WTS accepts the modern life-saving measure by blood, at the same time they impose a self-making rule and religious sanction upon JWs.

From "In Search Of Christian Freedom" by Raymond Franz, from Appendix p719-p722

The inconsistency of the Watch Tower’s policy as to acceptable and non-acceptable components is well illustrated in its policy as to plasma.

As can be seen in the chart taken from the October 22, 1990 issue of Awake! plasma composes about 55 percent of the volume of blood. Evidently on the basis of volume, it was placed on the Watch Tower’s list of banned “major components.” Yet plasma is actually up to 93 percent simple water. What are the components of the remaining approximately 7 percent? The principal ones are albumin, globulins (of which the immunoglobulins are the most essential parts), fibrinogen and coagulation factors (used in hemophiliac preparations). And these are precisely the components the organization lists as allowable to its members! The plasma is forbidden yet its principal components are permissible—provided they are introduced into the body separately. As one person observed, it is as if a person were instructed by a doctor to stop eating ham and cheese sandwiches, but told that it is acceptable to take the sandwich apart and eat the bread, the ham and the cheese separately, not as a sandwich.

Leukocytes, often called “white blood cells,” are also prohibited. In reality the term “white blood cells” is rather misleading.

This is because most leukocytes in a person’s body actually exist outside the blood system. One’s body contains about 2 to 3 kilos of leukocytes and only about 2-3 percent of this is in the blood system. The other 97-98 percent is spread throughout the body tissue, forming its defense (or immune) system. This means that a person receiving an organ transplant will simultaneously receive into his body more foreign leukocytes than if he had accepted a blood transfusion. Since the Watch Tower organization now allows organ transplantations, its adamant stand against leukocytes, while allowing other blood components, becomes meaningless. It could only be defended by use of convoluted reasonings, certainly not on any moral, rational or logical grounds.

The arbitrary splitting of the blood into “major” and “minor” components is also seen to be without sound basis. The organization evidently prohibits plasma—though mainly water—because of its volume (55% of the blood), yet it prohibits leukocytes which, as the Awake! chart shows, compose only about of 1 percent of the blood!

The absence of either moral or logical grounds for the position is also seen in that human milk contains leukocytes, more leukocytes, in fact, than found in a comparable amount of blood. Blood contains about 4,000 to 11,000 leukocytes per cubic millimeter, while a mother’s milk during the first few months of lactation may contain up to 50,000 leukocytes per cubic millimeter. That is up to five to twelve times more than the amount in blood!

Hemophiliac preparations (Factors VIII and IX) remain. Before these preparations came into use, the average life span of a hemophiliac in the 1940s was 16.5 years. Today, due to these blood-derived preparations, a hemophiliac may reach a normal life span. To produce preparations that could keep a hemophiliac alive over that period of time would require extractions from an estimated 100,000 liters of blood. Even though the hemophiliac preparations themselves represent only a fraction of that total, when we consider their source we must ask how this could possibly be viewed as involving a “small amount” of blood?

The use of any of these blood components obviously implies storage of large, even massive, amounts of blood. On the one hand the Watch Tower organization decrees as allowable the use of these blood components—and thereby the storage involved in their extraction and production—while on the other they state that they are opposed to all storage of blood as Biblically condemned. This is the sole basis they give for prohibiting the use of autologous blood by a Witness (that is, the person’s having some of his own blood stored and then returned to his blood stream during or following surgery). Clearly, the positions taken are arbitrary, inconsistent and contradictory. It is difficult to believe that the formulators, and also the writers of explanations and defenses, of such policy are so ignorant of the facts as to fail to see the inconsistency and arbitrariness involved. Yet that alone could save the position from also being termed dishonest.

The way of the WTS is like the way of Pharisees who made unreasonable rules and judged others with their interpretation.

Mt 23:16-22
16 "Woe to YOU, blind guides, who say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is under obligation.' 17 Fools and blind ones! Which, in fact, is greater, the gold or the temple that has sanctified the gold? 18 Also, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is under obligation.' 19 Blind ones! Which, in fact, is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20 Therefore he that swears by the altar is swearing by it and by all the things on it; 21 and he that swears by the temple is swearing by it and by him that is inhabiting it; 22 and he that swears by heaven is swearing by the throne of God and by him that is sitting on it.

The WTS is a blind guide like Pharisees.
Just as Pharisees who were condemned as blind guide, WTS splits blood into segments and says this one is OK but that one is not.
The WTS doesn't have the authority to make any rule in the matter of personal choice.

Each Christian has to decide what to chose as a life-saving measure.

In the 1950s and 1960s, whole blood transfusion is common practice, but today, in most cases, blood fractions are used for respective individuals.

Then they should accept the result of their choice whether it is fine or not, shouldn't they?
Religious sanction is not necessary.

In Bible times, outside of Israel, animal blood was used as a drink or for religious ritual, and people didn't have advanced knowledge of life-saving components in the blood, so that the medical use of blood components for emergency situation is quite new application of blood.

The decision written in Ac 15:20 doesn't assume the modern day use of blood for medical life-saving measure in emergency situation, does it?

Ac 15:19-20, 27-29
19 Hence my decision is not to trouble those from the nations who are turning to God, 20 but to write them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.

28 For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to YOU, except these necessary things, 29 to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication. If YOU carefully keep yourselves from these things, YOU will prosper. Good health to YOU!"

Ac 21:24-25
25 As for the believers from among the nations, we have sent out, rendering our decision that they should keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols as well as from blood and what is strangled and from fornication."

What they have in mind were something like practices to eat and drink blood or of using it in religious ritual, weren't they?

There are people who survive with blood transfusion, or without it.
There are people who lose life with blood transfusion, or without it.
There are people who suffer from after effects of blood transfusion or bloodless surgery.

How to use modern day medical practice is a matter of personal decision, and there are many alternative medicines and treatments.

Keeping "abstaining from blood" in mind, Christian can make his or her personal decision on medical treatment involving blood.

What is wrong with the WTS is that they rule others by their self-made standard of permission and prohibition with regard to blood components in medical treatments.

They don't have such a authority, they are not the master over our faith.

I'm not belittling the risks of blood transfusion, I appreciate the bloodless treatments developed by considerate doctors, but at the same time, I don't think it is right to condemn people who accept blood transfusion.

This is a matter between person and God.

Ro 14:4-5
4 Who are you to judge the house servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God can make him stand.