Jehovah Witnesses, you would rather see your child die than to get a life saving blood fusion?

This criticism comes up fairly often, and JWs like to chime in with disingenuous claims that no JW (or sometimes no JW child) has ever really died because they refused blood transfusion.

So before that misinformed rhetoric gets trotted out again, let's be clear that a 1994 Awake! magazine (a JW publication) article celebrated 26 children who had died after refusing blood transfusions. The article lionized these kids as "youths who put God first". A little Googling will easily turn up more recent articles about more JW adults and children whose deaths are directly tied to refusal of blood transfusion.

The blood issue is one of the reasons why I walked away from the JW's. I had many ?s about how a blood transfusion is the same as eating blood, & how if blood is so sacred why fractions are ok. Under the current policy, a witness can actually put the whole of blood into their system if it is broken down into fractions. Each acceptable fraction if combined with all other acceptable fractions equals whole blood. No one could show me in the bible where this applied, only verses about eating animal blood. I asked several witnesses my questions, including elders & no one could answer me. Witnesses rely completely on THE WATCHTOWER pubs to tell them what to do. If you ask pointed questions about any of the doctrines supported by the bible only, they simply cannot do it. They also used to teach that vaccines were demonic and organ transplants were cannibalism. Many died because of this. They believe they are following God. They follow man. And yes, they let their children die because of it

If we as Jehovah's Witnesses wanted our children to die, we wouldn't take them to the hospital or doctor. Parents have a right if they're a vegetarian not to feed their children meat and a Muslim parent won't feed their children pork, does that mean that they want to starve their children? Of course not. It’s the same with me as a parent, I want my children to live normal healthy lives and obey God as I would. The bible not only says don't take animal blood, but it says to abstain from all blood at Acts 15:20. It’s a very uneducated view to believe that your only option for saving your life if you have a loss of blood is a transfusion of another person’s blood, there are many bloodless alternatives that saves lives and that’s what we'd pursue. I will continue to teach my kids to obey God as ruler rather than man and that will save their life. Millions of kids are being raised in a godless world and are killing each other, disrespectful to teachers, authority, parents and so on, but folks seem to be more worried about Jehovah's Witnesses striving to raise good productive members of society because we don't except blood transfusions, but do more research on the medical alternatives than most will ever know to make sure we're obeying God who gave us this life in the first place.

Yes they would. The logic behind this is, they believe even if their child dies, they will be resurrected by God one day. The scriptures they use to justify their no blood rule is talking about the consumption of ANIMAL blood (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:14, and Acts 15:20).

They take those scriptures to mean human blood as well, which I disagree with. At the end of the day they claim that the bible is their final authority, but really it is the Watchtower and its doctrine. Whatever twist the Watchtower places on the bible is their final authority.

What if a Christian is badly injured or is in need of major surgery? Suppose doctors say that he must have a blood transfusion or he will die.

Of course, the Christian would not want to die. In an effort to preserve God’s precious gift of life, he would accept other kinds of treatment that do not involve the misuse of blood. Hence, he would seek such medical attention if that is available and would accept a variety of alternatives to blood.

Also, remember, blood transfusion in the oldest and dangerous medical practice. We have top of the line treatment today that never uses blood.

Would a Christian break God’s law just to stay alive a little longer in this system of things? Jesus said: “Whoever wants to save his soul [or, life] will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25) We do not want to die. But if we tried to save our present life by breaking God’s law, we would be in danger of losing everlasting life. We are wise, then, to put our trust in the rightness of God’s law, with full confidence that if we die from any cause, our Life-Giver will remember us in the resurrection and restore to us the precious gift of life.—John 5:28, 29; Hebrews 11:6.

16 Today, faithful servants of God firmly resolve to follow his direction regarding blood. They will not eat it in any form. Nor will they accept blood for medical reasons.* They are sure that the Creator of blood knows what is best for them. Do you believe that he does?

For more information, please visit our official website at www.jw.org.

thank you and good day!

Sadly, people do not realize, that ALL things come from the Earth, we eat from the Earth and we drink from the Earth. All of us are alike in that manner, therefore our blood cannot be different. Perhaps different in some ways, but blood is still blood. And we get it from what we eat, drink and breath.

Our food turns to blood, our water turns to blood, and the air we breath, cleans the blood, removing carbon dioxide and monoxide. We all get it from the same soil. Earth.

So to deny a child life simply because of someone else donates their blood, is like denying food to the child simply because someone else offers food.

How God sees this, I cannot say, for I am not He. Only He can judge those who kill others, rightly or wrongly.

Blood fusions are quite rare.

Blood transfusions are an accepted medical intervention for all but the mentally challenged.

They will let the child die believing they are keeping their faith by refusing the blood. And that their god will commend them for holding to that belief and decision. They believe that will see that child again, on this planet, after armageddon comes and they are the ones who made it through.

You are looking to entrap us much like the Pharisees and Sadducees were looking to entrap Jesus not biting

No Christian, Jehovah's Witnesses or not , would want to see their child die but if presented with the choice, they would be guided by Godly principles:

After Cain killed his brother Abel, Jehovah told Cain: “Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.” (Genesis 4:10) When God spoke of Abel’s blood, he was speaking of Abel’s life. Cain had taken Abel’s life, and now Cain would have to be punished. It was as if Abel’s blood, or life, were crying out to Jehovah for justice. The connection between life and blood was again shown after the Flood of Noah’s day. Before the Flood, humans ate only fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts. After the Flood, Jehovah told Noah and his sons: “Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to you.” However, God set this restriction: “Only flesh with its soul [or, life]—its blood—you must not eat.” (Genesis 1:29; 9:3, 4) Clearly, Jehovah links very closely the life and the blood of a creature.

We show respect for blood by not eating it. In the Law that Jehovah gave the Israelites, he commanded: “As for any man . . . 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. . . . I said to the sons of Israel: ‘You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh.’” (Leviticus 17:13, 14) God’s command not to eat animal blood, first given to Noah some 800 years earlier, was still in force. Jehovah’s view was clear: His servants could eat animal meat but not the blood. They were to pour the blood on the ground—in effect, returning the creature’s life to God.

A similar command rests upon Christians. The apostles and other men taking the lead among Jesus’ followers in the first century met together to decide what commands had to be obeyed by all in the Christian congregation. They came to this conclusion: “The holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled [leaving the blood in the meat] and from fornication.” (Acts 15:28, 29; 21:25) So we must ‘keep abstaining from blood.’ In God’s eyes, our doing that is as important as our avoiding idolatry and sexual immorality.

Does the command to abstain from blood include blood transfusions? Yes. To illustrate: Suppose a doctor were to tell you to abstain from alcoholic beverages. Would that simply mean that you should not drink alcohol but that you could have it injected into your veins? Of course not! Likewise, abstaining from blood means not taking it into our bodies at all. So the command to abstain from blood means that we would not allow anyone to transfuse blood into our veins.

What if a Christian is badly injured or is in need of major surgery? Suppose doctors say that he must have a blood transfusion or he will die. Of course, the Christian would not want to die. In an effort to preserve God’s precious gift of life, he would accept other kinds of treatment that do not involve the misuse of blood. Hence, he would seek such medical attention if that is available and would accept a variety of alternatives to blood.

Would a Christian break God’s law just to stay alive a little longer in this system of things? Jesus said: “Whoever wants to save his soul [or, life] will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25) We do not want to die. But if we tried to save our present life by breaking God’s law, we would be in danger of losing everlasting life. We are wise, then, to put our trust in the rightness of God’s law, with full confidence that if we die from any cause, our Life-Giver will remember us in the resurrection and restore to us the precious gift of life.—John 5:28, 29; Hebrews 11:6.