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Jehovah's Witnesses and the Secular World

Part of the book series: Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700-2000 ((HISASE))

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Abstract

Jehovah’s Witnesses’ doctrinal position on blood is entirely unique. They do not object to medical treatment per se but to the ingestion of blood and the primary components of blood, which they believe the Bible proscribes. Since 1945, the doctrine on blood has been the most contentious of the Watch Tower Society’s teachings. It banned the storage, donation, and transfusion of blood for Witnesses of all ages. This chapter examines the scriptural basis of the Society’s teachings on blood and the response of governments to this stance. In the modern era it has brought into particularly sharp focus questions about the respect of the informed refusal of treatment and the legal rights of patients, parental rights and the welfare of children and adolescents, and the legal issues surrounding the treatment of minors.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 15 February 1964, 127.

  2. 2.

    Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Question of Blood (Brooklyn, NYC: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1977), 19.

  3. 3.

    ‘Disregarding God’s guidance concerning the sacredness of lifeblood can result in everlasting death. Showing respect for Jesus’ sacrifice can lead to everlasting life’. ‘Be Guided by the Living God’, The Watchtower, 15 June 2004, 20–21.

  4. 4.

    Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1993), 145.

  5. 5.

    Within a single culture blood may carry a range of symbolic meanings. In his classic ethnographic study of the Ndembu people of Zambia, Victor Turner identified blood in one tribal ritual as symbolising both the giving of life in connection with childbirth and the taking of life in connection with hunting. V. Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca and London: Cornel University Press, 1967), 363.

  6. 6.

    D. Starr, Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce (New York: Perennial, 2002), p. xiv. According to Diamond, the Bible mentions blood ‘more than 500 times’. L. K. Diamond, ‘A History of Blood Transfusion’, Blood, Pure and Eloquent: A Story of Discovery, of People, and of Ideas (London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980), 660.

  7. 7.

    M. B. Eddy, Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures (Boston, MA: The First Church of Christ, Scientist), xi. The Church publishes testimonies of healing through prayer and through the study of Science and Health. See A Century of Christian Science Healing (Boston, MA: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966) and Healing Spiritually: Renewing your Life through the Power of God’s Law (Boston, MA: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1996).

  8. 8.

    R. K. Spence et al., ‘Surgery in the Jehovah’s Witness’ in B. D. Spiess, R. K. Spence and A. Shander (eds), Perioperative Transfusion Medicine, Second Edition (Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2006), 504.

  9. 9.

    On the ‘medicalization’ of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, see M. Bull, ‘Secularization and Medicalization’, The British Journal of Sociology 41, no. 2 (June 1990), 245–261 and M. Bull and K. Lockhart, Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), 219–229.

  10. 10.

    See, for example, this discussion of organ donation, which states: ‘… it would be well to have in mind that organ transplant operations, such as are now being performed in an attempt to repair the body or extend a life-span, were not the custom thousands of years ago, so we cannot expect to find legislation in the Bible on transplanting human organs. Yet, this does not mean that we have no indication of God’s view of such matters’. ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 15 November 1967, 702.

  11. 11.

    G. del Pino, ‘How Vaccines Work’, The Golden Age, 27 April 1921, 440–442. No state was specified, so presumably this refers to Glasgow in Scotland.

  12. 12.

    H. A. Ratschou, ‘Effectiveness of Vaccination’, The Golden Age, 14 September 1921, 754.

  13. 13.

    R. W. Maygrove, ‘Vaccination a Failure’, The Golden Age, 12 October 1921, 17.

  14. 14.

    See M. E. Burnet, ‘Cured by Serums’ and A. Murray, ‘Vaccine Therapy a Success’, The Golden Age, 12 October 1921, 15–17

  15. 15.

    F. R. Freer, ‘Leicester against Vaccination’, The Golden Age, 7 November 1923, 87; A. J. Holmes, ‘The Vaccination Fraud’, The Golden Age, 3 January 1923, 211–214.

  16. 16.

    C. A. Pattilo, ‘The Sacredness of Human Blood (Reasons why Vaccination is Unscriptural)’, The Golden Age, 4 February 1931, 293.

  17. 17.

    ‘True Christian Heard in Court’, The Golden Age, 21 April 1935, 471.

  18. 18.

    M. Friedrich, ‘Vaccination Experiences in Cleveland’, The Golden Age, 30 March 1932, 408–410.

  19. 19.

    H. R. Rickards, ‘Vaccination’, The Golden Age, 1 May 1929, 501.

  20. 20.

    Pattilo, ‘The Sacredness of Human Blood’, 293.

  21. 21.

    H. Sillaway, ‘Vaccination—Why not?’, The Golden Age, 4 February 1931, 298.

  22. 22.

    ‘Vaccination and serum bar’ [Illustration], Consolation, 31 May 1939, 5.

  23. 23.

    See, for example, several articles in The Golden Age issue of 4 September 1929.

  24. 24.

    G. R. Clements, ‘So-called Medical Science and Liver’, The Golden Age, 9 January 1929, 245.

  25. 25.

    T. Wills, A People for His Name: A History of Jehovah’s Witnesses and an Evaluation (Morriseville, NC: Lulu, 2006), 110 and M. J. Penton, Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Third Edition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 76, 91–93.

  26. 26.

    ‘It has never been proven that a single disease is due to germs’. ‘A Study of a Theory of Revolution, in Two Parts (Part II)’, The Golden Age, 16 January 1924, 250. The article is written in the first person. Although the author is not given, one assumes it is by Woodworth as editor.

  27. 27.

    In the twenty-first century, some conservative Christian groups object to vaccination for sexually transmitted diseases, such as the Family Research Council in the United States, arguing that it would encourage unsafe sex, whilst the presence of pig enzymes in vaccination serum has led to the widespread rejection of the practice by Muslims living according to Sharia customs and law in parts of Indonesia.

  28. 28.

    A. H. Macmillan, Faith on the March (Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1957), 189. The incident is referred to briefly in W. Stockdale, Jehovah’s Witnesses in American Prisons (Putnam, CT: The Wilda Press, 1946), 7.

  29. 29.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 15 December 1952, 764. The position that vaccination is a matter of individual conscience has been regularly restated since. See, for example, ‘Should My Family Be Immunized?’, Awake!, 8 August 1993, 3. Singelenberg was therefore mistaken when he wrote ‘…until the 1960s it [vaccination] was still considered an act of pollution of blood and body’. R. Singelenberg, ‘The Blood Transfusion Taboo of Jehovah’s Witnesses: Origin, Development and Function of a Controversial Doctrine’, Social Science and Medicine 31, no. 4 (1990), 516.

  30. 30.

    ‘Announcements’, The Watchtower, 15 May 1955, 320.

  31. 31.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 1 August 1961, 480.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 15 November 1967, 702.

  33. 33.

    ‘… 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)’. ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 15 March 1980, 31.

  34. 34.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, 15 December 1952, 764.

  35. 35.

    This has also been suggested by critics of the policy. Anonymous, ‘Vaccination’, Advocates for Jehovah’s Witness Reform on Blood, http://ajwrb.org/vaccination, accessed 11 August 2017.

  36. 36.

    ‘God bound himself to perform his part of the covenant; and Noah was told that thereafter man should be over all the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that these animals might be slain by man for the purpose of providing food; that the life is in the blood, and that therefore the blood should not be used for food’. J. F. Rutherford, Creation (Brooklyn: International Bible Students Association and Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1927), 102. The statement ‘The life is in the blood’ also appears on pages 152 and 163.

  37. 37.

    ‘Letters’, The Watchtower, 15 February 1939, 62. The text and date of the original letter were not printed, only Rutherford’s reply.

  38. 38.

    ‘The Mending of a Heart’, Consolation, 25 December 1940, 19.

  39. 39.

    ‘Immovable for the Right Worship’, The Watchtower, 1 July 1945, 200–201.

  40. 40.

    One passage read: ‘God never issued provisions prohibiting the use of medicine, injections or blood transfusion. It is an invention of people who, like the Pharisees, leave Jehovah’s mercy and love aside’. Singelenberg observed that it was inconceivable that this inconsistency would be repeated. Cited in Singelenberg, ‘The Blood Transfusion Taboo of Jehovah’s Witnesses’, 516. When the issue was written, Witnesses’ had been under ban for some years, and communication between the local branch and the world headquarters had largely broken down (Office of Public of Information at the world headquarters for Jehovah’s Witnesses, New York). These conditions likely led to this inconsistency, which is highly unusual.

  41. 41.

    ‘Dangers of Blood Transfusion’, Awake!, 22 October 1948, 12.

  42. 42.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 15 January 1961, 64.

  43. 43.

    J. Bergman, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood Transfusions’ in J. Bergman (ed.), Jehovah’s Witnesses II: Controversial and Polemical Pamphlets (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990), 575.

  44. 44.

    See, for example, the responses to nine questions in ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 1 July 1951, 414–416, which cites these passages in Genesis, Leviticus and Acts.

  45. 45.

    The Society looks to the New Testament for confirmation of guidance in the Old Testament. Where this cannot be found, the teaching is regarded as no longer having direct application. To take two examples from Leviticus: the death penalty for homosexual acts in 20:13 and the avoidance of shellfish in 11:11 are rejected by the Watch Tower Society. G. D. Chryssides, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Continuity and Change (Farnham: Ashgate, 2016), 172–173.

  46. 46.

    WTBTS, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 183.

  47. 47.

    See, for example, the opening sentences of the entry ‘Blood’ in Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Aid to Bible Understanding (New York City: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1971), 243. Although this book is now considered out of date, having been replaced by the two-volume set Insight on the Scriptures in 1988, it summarises well the organisation’s position.

  48. 48.

    ‘Carry Your Own Load of Responsibility’, The Watchtower, 15 February 1963, 124.

  49. 49.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, 1 July 1951, 415.

  50. 50.

    Cited in K. Pelis, ‘Blood Clots: The Nineteenth-Century Debate Over the Substance and Means of Transfusion In Britain’, Annals of Science 54, no. 4 (1997), 338.

  51. 51.

    ‘Supreme Court Agrees: Your Children Do Not Belong to You’, Awake!, 8 July 1968, 15.

  52. 52.

    R. M. Titmuss, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy (Second Edition, edited by A. Oakley and J. Ashton) (London: LSE Books, 1997). The dangers resulting from the country’s poorly regulated blood industry were also exposed in the national media, in one instance on the front page of the New York Times: W. Rugaber, ‘Prison Drug and Plasma Projects Leave Fatal Trail’, New York Times, 29 July 1969, 1; 20–21.

  53. 53.

    A. W. Gouldner, ‘Book review: The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy. By Richard Titmuss’, New York Times, 21 March 1971, BR2-4.

  54. 54.

    ‘Blood “Donors”?’, Awake!, 8 August 1972, 12.

  55. 55.

    WTBTS, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Question of Blood, 43.

  56. 56.

    ‘Watching the World’, Awake!, 8 July 1969, 30; ‘Using Life in Harmony with the Will of God’, The Watchtower, 15 September 1961, 564.

  57. 57.

    ‘Watching the World’, 8 July 1969, 30.

  58. 58.

    Starr, Blood, 9.

  59. 59.

    This is from his entry for 14 November 1666, which is widely cited. Cited in Titmuss, The Gift Relationship, 63.

  60. 60.

    Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood Transfusion: The Facts (WTBTS, 1960), 2.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., 3.

  62. 62.

    ‘Carry Your Own Load of Responsibility’, 124.

  63. 63.

    ‘Watching the World’, Awake!, 8 May 1964, 30.

  64. 64.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, 15 February 1964, 128.

  65. 65.

    ‘“A Time to Speak”—When?’, The Watchtower, 1 September 1987, 14. This article is atypical, since normally Witnesses would be expected to confront an errant Witness themselves and give them an opportunity to amend their behaviour before reporting the matter to elders. I am grateful for George D. Chryssides for this insight.

  66. 66.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, 15 January 1961, 63. A reader asks: ‘In view of the seriousness of taking blood into the human system by a transfusion, would violation of the Holy Scriptures in this regard subject the dedicated, baptized receiver of a blood transfusion to being disfellowshipped from the Christian congregation?’. The first line of the reply reads: ‘The inspired Holy Scriptures answer yes’.

  67. 67.

    As one representative of the Society explained, ‘…it is not the fact of accepting blood but a Witness’s attitude about accepting it that is important’. D. T. Ridley, ‘Honoring Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Advance Directives in Emergencies: A Response to Drs Migden and Braen’, Academic Emergency Medicine 5, no. 8 (Aug., 1998), 826.

  68. 68.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, 15 January 1961, 64.

  69. 69.

    A gravely ill Jehovah’s Witness prisoner, incarcerated for conscientious objection, in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut received a transfusion from a fellow Witness without realising this contravened the Society’s teachings. According to the author, his ignorance of the Society’s teaching excused this transgression. Stockdale, Jehovah’s Witnesses in American Prisons, 17.

  70. 70.

    T. Brace, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Children, Blood Transfusions and the Law (Who Holds the Key or Controls the Flak-Jacket?) [Unpublished paper], Inform Autumn Seminar 2015, 1.

  71. 71.

    ‘Watching the World’, Awake!, 22 February 1975.

  72. 72.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 15 June 1978, 30–31.

  73. 73.

    Penton, Apocalypse Delayed, footnote 103, 457.

  74. 74.

    R. Franz, Crisis of Conscience, Second Edition (Atlanta: Commentary Press, 1992), 98.

  75. 75.

    ‘Questions from Readers’, The Watchtower, 15 June 2000, 31.

  76. 76.

    L. van den Berg, ‘Tamara Coakley’s life saved by cow’s blood’, The Daily Telegraph, 5 May 2011 at http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/tamara-coakleys-life-saved-by-cows-blood/story-e6freuzi-1226050105216, accessed 11 August 2017.

  77. 77.

    C. Bateman, ‘Metanalysis Critical of Blood Alternative Product Challenged’, South African Medical Journal 98, no. 10 (Oct., 2008), 746, 748; ‘Blood alternative products: Correction regarding Jehovah’s Witnesses’, South African Medical Journal 99, no. 2 (Feb., 2009), 72; 74. See also K. C. Lowe, ‘Blood Substitutes and Oxygen Therapeutics’ in M. Contreras (ed.), ABC of Transfusion (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013 [Fourth Edition]), 96.

  78. 78.

    For example, see ‘India’, 1977 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Brooklyn, NY: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1976), 133.

  79. 79.

    ‘Why We Need Accurate Knowledge’, The Watchtower, 1 December 1989, 12.

  80. 80.

    ‘Court Asked to Safeguard Patients’, Awake!, 22 September 1967, 3.

  81. 81.

    WTBTS, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 184.

  82. 82.

    D. Malyon, ‘Transfusion-free treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses: Respecting the autonomous patient’s motives’, Journal of Medical Ethics 24 (1998), 376–381.

  83. 83.

    Charland cited in N. Robb, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses Leading Education Drive as Hospitals Adjust to No Blood Requests’, Canadian Medical Association Journal 154, no. 4 (15 February 1996), 559.

  84. 84.

    Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Family Care and Medical Management for Jehovah’s Witnesses (New York: WTBTS, 1992).

  85. 85.

    Ibid., 3.

  86. 86.

    WTBTS, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Question of Blood, 55.

  87. 87.

    There was also one on the Isle of Malta. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Family Care and Medical Management for Jehovah’s Witnesses (New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1995), Network Section, page 8. At around the same time there were HLCs in 375 major European cities (the figure includes the British HLCs) and 160 HLCs across the United States and Canada. WTBTS, Family Care and Medical Management for Jehovah’s Witnesses, Network Section, page 8; WTBTS, Family Care and Medical Management for Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1992), 4.

  88. 88.

    See for example J. Hyun Lee and W. Ahn, ‘The stance of Jehovah’s Witnesses on the use blood and Hospital Liaison Committee’, Korean Journal of Anesthesiology 60, no. 4 (2011), 302.

  89. 89.

    M. L. Smith, ‘Jehovah’s Witness Refusal of Blood Products’, Encyclopaedia of Bioethics, Third Edition (Macmillan Reference USA, 2003), vol. 3, 1343.

  90. 90.

    Hospital Liaison Committee, Medical Management for Jehovah’s Witnesses (Wigston: Hospital Liaison Committee, no date). Based on the contents, the folder is likely to have been compiled in late 1992 or 1993. The letter reproduced in the file is: G. T. Watts, ‘NHS trusts and Jehovah’s Witnesses’, The Lancet, 339 (20 June 1992), 1545.

  91. 91.

    Hospital Information Services for Jehovah’s Witnesses, Clinical Strategies to Avoid Blood Transfusion (London: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 2012).

  92. 92.

    ‘Medical Information for Clinicians’, https://www.jw.org/en/medical-library/, accessed 11 August 2017.

  93. 93.

    M. Sheldon, ‘Ethical Issues in the Forced Transfusion of Jehovah’s Witness Children’, The Journal of Emergency Medicine 14, no. 2 (1996), 252.

  94. 94.

    A. S. Berger, Dying and Death in Law and Medicine: A Forensic Primer for Health and Legal Professionals (Westport, CT; London: Praeger, 1993), 55.

  95. 95.

    Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Family Care and Medical Management for Jehovah’s Witnesses (1995), Network Section, page 7. The handbooks do not have a continuous pagination system. Although printed in the United States, this handbook is tailored to a British audience.

  96. 96.

    C. F. Gartrell-Mills, Christian Science: An American Religion in Britain, 1895–1930 [PhD thesis] (1991, Wolfson College, Oxford), 17.

  97. 97.

    J. C. Ford, ‘The Refusal of Blood Transfusions by Jehovah’s Witnesses (Parts 1 and II)’, The Linacre Quarterly 22, no. 1 (Feb., 1955), 3–10 and J. C. Ford, ‘The Refusal of Blood Transfusions by Jehovah’s Witnesses (Parts III and IV)’, The Linacre Quarterly 22, no. 2 (May 1955), 41–50. The articles were reprinted as J. C. Ford, ‘The Refusal of Blood Transfusions by Jehovah’s Witnesses’, Bulletin of the American Association of Blood Banks 9, no. 1 (Jan., 1956), 25–27. The editor(s) failed to note that the author was a Catholic priest when the articles were reprinted in the Bulletin of the American Association of Blood Banks.

  98. 98.

    Ford, ‘The Refusal of Blood Transfusions by Jehovah’s Witnesses (Parts III and IV)’, 46.

  99. 99.

    Philip L. Swigart, ‘Hemophobia’, Bulletin of the American Association of Blood Banks 13, no. 3 (Mar., 1960), 114.

  100. 100.

    British Medical Association, Rights and Responsibilities of Doctors (London: British Medical Association, 1988), 6.

  101. 101.

    Ibid., 7.

  102. 102.

    Peter Rosen, ‘Editorial: Religious Freedom and Forced Transfusion of Jehovah’s Witness Children’, The Journal of Emergency Medicine 14, no. 2 (1996), 241.

  103. 103.

    British Medical Association, Rights and Responsibilities of Doctors, 12.

  104. 104.

    See, for example, the following: Medical Defence Union, Consent to Treatment; General Medical Council, Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice (London: General Medical Council, 2013); Council of The Royal College of Surgeons of England, Code of Practice for The Surgical Management of Jehovah’s Witnesses (London: Council of The Royal College of Surgeons of England, 2002); The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, Management of Anaesthesia for Jehovah’s Witnesses (London: The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, 1999).

  105. 105.

    British Medical Association Archive, London, United Kingdom (hereafter BMA Archive). Letter from Dr Frank Wells to Dr Goodridge, 6 October 1980. /E/2/279/2-2(2) 8 (7) 19.

  106. 106.

    See the various letters and memos related to the case in BMA Archive, /E/2/279/2-2(2) 8 (7) 19.

  107. 107.

    BMA Archive, Letter from P. C. Walker to Miss A.J. Porter, 24 February 1978 in BMA Archive, /E/2/279/2-2(2) 8 (7) 19.

  108. 108.

    The Executive Secretary of the Committee, Audrey J. Porter, writes in reply to the letter from P. C. Walker cited above that she will ‘have a word with the Chairman’ about the issue of Jehovah’s Witnesses and medical treatment at a meeting of the Central Ethics Committee that week. Letter from Audrey J. Porter to Dr P. C. Walker, 13 March 1978 in BMA Archive, /E/2/279/2-2(2) 8 (7) 19. The discussion is not recorded in the Committee’s minutes.

  109. 109.

    Letter from Audrey J. Porter to Dr P. C. Walker, 13 March 1978 in BMA Archive, /E/2/279/2-2(2) 8 (7) 19 and Letter from Audrey J. Porter to Mr J. J. Corkery, 30 August 1978 in BMA Archive, /E/2/279/2-2(2) 8 (7) 19.

  110. 110.

    Medical Defense Union, Consent to Treatment (London: Medical Defense Union, 1968). The pages sent by Porter were taken from the revised 1970 version of the booklet; the author has consulted the 1968 revised version.

  111. 111.

    M. S. Gohel et al., ‘How to approach major surgery where patients refuse blood transfusion (including Jehovah’s Witnesses)’, Annals of The Royal College of Surgeons of England 87 (2005), 4.

  112. 112.

    See for example B. H. Campbell, ‘Listening to Leviticus’, Journal of the American Medical Association 299, no. 8 (27 February 2008), 879–880 and Berger, Dying and Death in Law and Medicine, 55. The differences within the medical community on this issue is illustrated by a poll conducted by the Brazilian Society of Cardiology. For a summary of the results, see M. Grinberg and G. Zlotnik Chehaibar, ‘Poll—Jehovah’s Witness Patient’, Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia 95, no. 6 (2010), 765–766.

  113. 113.

    See Table 7.5 ‘Alternatives to Surgical Allogeneic Transfusion’ which outlines how a surgeon might approach alternatives to blood stages in R. K. Spence, ‘Transfusion in Surgery, Trauma and Critical Care’ in P. D. Mintz (ed.), Transfusion Therapy: Clinical Principles and Practice, Second Edition (Bethesda, MD: AABB Press, 2005), 214 and the closing sentence in Spence et al., ‘Surgery in the Jehovah’s Witness’, 510, which urges physicians to consider bloodless alternatives for all patients.

  114. 114.

    Robb, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses Leading Education Drive as Hospitals Adjust to No Blood Requests’, 557–560; ‘The Growing Demand for Bloodless Medicine and Surgery’, Awake!, 8 January 2000, 7–11.

  115. 115.

    Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital, 1985.

  116. 116.

    J. Craigie, ‘Competence, Practical Rationality and What a Patient Values’, Bioethics, 25, no. 6 (2011), 326–333.

  117. 117.

    Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood Transfusion: The Facts (Strathfield, NSW: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1960), 8.

  118. 118.

    ‘Walk as Instructed by Jehovah’, The Watchtower, 15 June 1991, 13–15.

  119. 119.

    ‘Youths Who Put God First’, Awake!, 22 May 1994, 1.

  120. 120.

    Rev. C. Maurice Davies D.D., Unorthodox London: Or, Phases of Religious Life in the Metropolis (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1876) [Second edition], 177.

  121. 121.

    Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority [1985] UKHL 7 (17 October 1985). The issue is explored in celebrated English author Ian McEwan’s novel The Children Act (London: Jonathan Cape, 2014).

  122. 122.

    Re E (A Minor) (Wardship: Medical Treatment) [1993] 1 FLR 386.

  123. 123.

    Re S (A Minor) (Wardship: Medical Treatment) [1994] 2 FLR 1065.

  124. 124.

    Smith, ‘Jehovah’s Witness Refusal of Blood Products’, 1341.

  125. 125.

    J. Savulescu and R. W. Momeyer, ‘Should informed consent be based on rational beliefs?’, Journal of Medical Ethics 23 (1993), 282–288. For an opposing view, see G. L Bock, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and autonomy: Honouring the refusal of blood transfusions’, Journal of Medical Ethics 38 (2012), 652–656.

  126. 126.

    C. Granger [Letter] ‘Managing a Jehovah’s Witness who agrees to a blood transfusion’, British Medical Journal vol. 309 (3 September 1994), 612.

  127. 127.

    For example, see the response of David Malyon to two articles by Muramoto on the blood issue, which he condemns as ‘unethically based, legally erroneous, medically dangerous, morally questionable and theologically superficial’ (p. 380); Malyon, ‘Transfusion-free treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 376–381. See also D. T. Ridley, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Refusal of Blood: Obedience to Scripture and Religious Conscience’, Journal of Medical Ethics 25 (1999), 469–472; P. Wilcox, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood Transfusion’, Lancet 353 (February 1999), 757–758; Bock, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and Autonomy’, 652–656. See also the contributions to the ‘Rapid Responses’ section of the British Medical Journal online in response to O. Muramoto, ‘Bioethical aspects of the recent changes in the policy of refusal of blood by Jehovah’s Witnesses’, British Medical Journal 322 (6 January 2001). There was a lengthy exchange between Rulf Furuli, a Witness elder and HLC member from Norway; Marvin Shilmer and Lee Elder, critics who claimed to be Witnesses in good standing; and Muramoto himself.

  128. 128.

    The ‘creation’ of AJWRB is dated to June 1997 on the page ‘Watchtower blood policy changes—A Timeline’ (http://ajwrb.org/the-historical-perspective/blood-policy-timeline) while its ‘beginning’ is given as 1998 on the page ‘Welcome to AJWRB’ (http://ajwrb.org/about-ajwrb). Both pages were accessed on 11 August 2017.

  129. 129.

    ‘Blood Transfusion in Modern History’ at http://ajwrb.org/the-historical-perspective/the-modern-historical-perspective, accessed 11 August 2017.

  130. 130.

    ‘Welcome to AJWRB’.

  131. 131.

    The AJWRB website highlighted the experience of Wayne Rogers, from the United States, who was disfellowshipped after his wife reported him to elders for sending an email to the AJWRB expressing support for its campaign. According to Rogers, in a meeting with elders, ‘They told me that I was a spiritually dead branch that needed to be cut off’. After being disfellowshipped, Rogers became involved with AJWRB. L. Elder, ‘Gestapo Tactics—the Wayne Rogers story (27 July 2014)’ at http://ajwrb.org/gestapo-tactics-the-wayne-rogers-story, accessed 11 August 2017.

  132. 132.

    ‘Transcript of a Radio Interview with the Liberal Elder on the Blood Issue (14 June 1998)’, BBC Radio 4 Sunday Programme at http://reachouttrust.org/jehovahs-witnesses/transcript-of-a-radio-interview-with-the-liberal-elder-on-the-blood-issue/, accessed 11 August 2017.

  133. 133.

    See, for example, C. Ó Néill, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood Transfusions: An Analysis of the Legal Protections Afforded to Adults and Children in European/English Human Rights Contexts’, European Journal of Health Law 24 (2017), 1–22.

  134. 134.

    Various, ‘Letters to the Editor’, Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 13, no. 4 (2008), 330–341.

  135. 135.

    L. Elder, ‘Why Some Jehovah’s Witnesses Accept Blood and Conscientiously Reject Official Watchtower Society Blood Policy’, Journal of Medical Ethics 26 (2000), 375.

  136. 136.

    See, for example, J. Simpson, ‘Nursing with Dignity: Part 9: Jehovah’s Witnesses’, Nursing Times 98, no. 17 (2002), 36, which points readers of this trade journal to the AJWRB for further information, and Néill, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood Transfusions’, 1–22, which discusses Elder’s views as though they were widespread within the Witness community.

  137. 137.

    Elder, ‘Why Some Jehovah’s Witnesses Accept Blood and Conscientiously Reject Official Watchtower Society Blood Policy’, 377.

  138. 138.

    Franz, Crisis of Conscience, 106–107. See Franz’s discussion of the precise date of the 1975 decision in the Appendix on pages 358–359.

  139. 139.

    As early as 1990, Singelenberg reported: ‘According to dissident sources Witnesses accept blood transfusions. This was confirmed to me by medical authorities although the magnitude seems limited’. Singelenberg, ‘The Blood Transfusion Taboo of Jehovah’s Witnesses’, 519.

  140. 140.

    Muramoto, ‘Bioethical aspects of the recent changes in the policy of refusal of blood by Jehovah’s Witnesses’, p. 39; O. Muramoto, ‘Recent developments in medical care of Jehovah’s Witnesses’, Western Journal of Medicine, 170 (May 1999), 299.

  141. 141.

    A. Holden, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement (London: Routledge, 1999), 167. There is some indication that the Society might be aware that this is difficult for new recruits or the wavering Witnesses to accept. In Awakening of a Jehovah’s Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002), Diane Wilson claims that the blood doctrine is deliberately explained last to potential recruits.

  142. 142.

    Rosen, ‘Editorial: Religious Freedom and Forced Transfusion of Jehovah’s Witness Children’, 241–242.

  143. 143.

    O. Muramoto, ‘Bioethics of the Refusal of Blood by Jehovah’s Witnesses: Part 1. Should Bioethical Deliberation Consider Dissidents’ Views?’, Journal of Medical Ethics 24 (1998), 223–230.

  144. 144.

    D. M. Shaner and J. Prema, ‘Conversation and the Jehovah’s Witness Dying from Blood Loss’, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics 4, no. 3 (2014), 260.

  145. 145.

    Ibid., 255. See also the divisions amongst hospital staff over the issue of respect for Jackson Bales’ refusal of blood transfusion for the treatment of complications arising from sickle cell disease. Bales was an immigrant from Haiti who had recently become a Jehovah’s Witnesses—although had not been baptised. The case is analysed in an ethnographic study by R. B. Miller, Children, Ethics, and Modern Medicine (Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003), 170–178.

  146. 146.

    O. Muramoto, ‘Bioethics of the Refusal of Blood by Jehovah’s Witnesses: Part 3. A Proposal for a Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Policy’, Journal of Medical Ethics 25 (1999), 464.

  147. 147.

    K. Louderback-Wood, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses, Blood Transfusions, and the Tort of Misrepresentation’, Journal of Church and State 47, no. 5 (2005), 783.

  148. 148.

    Ibid., 800, 803, 808–809, 819, 822.

  149. 149.

    See, for example, the video ‘No Blood: Medicine Meets the Challenge’ available at www.jw.org/en/publications/videos/no-blood-medicine-meets-challenge, accessed 17 August 2017.

  150. 150.

    E. C. Gruss and former Jehovah’s Witnesses (eds.), The Four Presidents of the Watch Tower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses): The Men and the Organization They Created (USA: Xulon Press, 2003), 27.

  151. 151.

    Cited in Bergman, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood Transfusions’, 578.

  152. 152.

    Ibid., 579–582. For further discussion of the approaches taken by Gruss, White/Wills and Bergman, see Z. Knox, ‘Writing Witness History: The Historiography of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania’, Journal of Religious History 35, no. 2 (2011), 157–180.

  153. 153.

    Holden, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 29.

  154. 154.

    William H. Schneider makes the subtle point that the scientific and technical developments in transfusion were advanced, though not stimulated, by war, thus seeking to separate the history of transfusion from that of military medicine in ‘Blood Transfusion in Peace and War, 1900–1918’, Social History of Medicine 10, no. 1 (1997), 105–126 and ‘Blood Transfusion Between the Wars’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 58, no. 2 (2003), 187–224.

  155. 155.

    G. Keynes, Blood Transfusion (London: Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton, 1922), 98.

  156. 156.

    He argues: ‘…blood transfusion was part of nationalistic manifestations like flags, national anthems and armies’. Singelenberg, ‘The Blood Transfusion Taboo of Jehovah’s Witnesses’, 520.

  157. 157.

    B. Berner, ‘(Dis)connecting Bodies: Blood Donation and Technical Change, Sweden 1915–1950’ in E. Johnson and B. Berner (eds), Technology and Medical Practice: Blood, Guts and Machines (Ashgate, 2010), 189.

  158. 158.

    Titmuss, The Gift Relationship, 84.

  159. 159.

    Singelenberg, ‘The Blood Transfusion Taboo of Jehovah’s Witnesses’, 520.

  160. 160.

    Spence et al., ‘Surgery in the Jehovah’s Witness’, 503. Ironically, the brief history of the organisation with which the chapter opens contains a number of errors, among them the claim that ‘The Jehovah’s Witnesses religion started in the early 1800s…’ (p. 503).

  161. 161.

    C. M. Shrestha argues that by engaging with the same issues, the AJWRB and the Watch Tower Society reach syncretism. He goes so far as to suggest that there may be ‘peace and reconciliation between the two conflicting groups’ in Issues Regarding Blood Transfusion Between Jehovah’s Witnesses and Associated Jehovah’s Witnesses for Reform on Blood: Assessment of the Existing Controversies and Possibility of Syncretism between the Two Groups, Unpublished MA Thesis submitted at MF Norwegian School of Theology, 2015, 78.

  162. 162.

    ‘Use of the Internet—Be Alert to the Dangers!’, Our Kingdom Ministry, November 1999, 3–6. The position has softened somewhat since the early days of its use, although the Society still urges caution. See ‘The Internet: Making Wise Use of a Global Tool’, The Watchtower, 15 August 2011, 3–5.

  163. 163.

    For a discussion of this issue in the context of respect for patient autonomy, see R. Macklin, Enemies of Patients (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 13.

  164. 164.

    See for example E. R. DuBose (ed.), The Jehovah’s Witness Tradition: Religious Beliefs and Health Care Decisions (Chicago, IL: Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics, 1995), one in a series explaining the attitudes to healthcare among fifteen religious traditions. There is no mention of the changing attitude to blood in the ten-page guidance for practitioners. Oddly, the same booklet acknowledges the Society’s changing positions on the issues of marriage, tobacco, and sterilisation (pages 4 and 8).

  165. 165.

    Simpson, ‘Nursing with Dignity’, 37.

  166. 166.

    Ibid.

  167. 167.

    Elder, ‘Why Some Jehovah’s Witnesses Accept Blood and Conscientiously Reject Official Watchtower Society Blood Policy’, 379.

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    Zoe Knox

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Knox, Z. (2018). Blood. In: Jehovah's Witnesses and the Secular World. Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700-2000. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39605-1_5

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