Jehovah's Witnesses eases rules on blood transfusions

"Ok, you can have your precious blood. But, Christmas and birthdays are still only for the heathen masses!"

And in 2026, god changed his mind. To those who died before he changed his mind, his official statement was "lol"

No one in here is mentioning how, You have to store your own blood in order to get it back. So if you have a traumatic injury and you're bleeding out if you haven't stored blood that month ... And mind you blood doesn't last that long even when separated. You can only get your own blood back

So which high ranking leader needs a blood transfusion that triggered this?

I’m an anesthesiologist and these new restrictions are logistically extremely challenging. First of all, you can only do it if it’s a planned surgery, emergent/urgent surgery won’t allow time to do this. It also requires a hospital that allows these patients to 1) have this amount of blood drawn preoperatively and 2) store it for only them until their surgery date. None of this is an easy feat especially for smaller community hospitals.

They still can't take other people's blood. >Jehovah's Witnesses has updated its policy on blood transfusions to allow members to have their own blood removed, stored, and "given back" in medical procedures.

So what part of the bible are they referencing? I don't recall Jesus giving his views on things that wouldn't be invented for 1600 years.

I’m an exjw who had a medical emergency when I was 9. My mom was absolutely prepared to let me die rather than let me have a transfusion, she got in an argument with the nurses about it. If I had needed a transfusion to survive, I either would have died or the hospital would have taken temporary custody to give me the transfusion. I wonder how many people died who would have been saved if this rule change had happened earlier.

This is fairly standard for non-Jehovah's witnesses. Autologous are just units you had collected and tested and then directed towards yourself ahead of time. When you have a scheduled surgery for something like a hip replacement it is common to have autologous units on hand. Life saving blood transfusions truly are medical miracles and the laboratory work that goes into every single transfusion, even emergency release, is done so fast that it is easy to overlook how complex it is and how accurate medicine and the associated laboratory methodologies have gotten. All that aside. You do not want to have a transfusion unless you really need one. Every transfusion carries the risk of sensitization to blood group antigens. This is why cross match results expire. Your blood type, barring some pretty exceptional circumstances, does not change but your antibody screening results can change. Units are screened and directed based on ABO/RH and antibody screen status. For patients requiring frequent transfusions, say someone with sickle cell anemia, they are likely to have common antibodies and special care is taken when selecting units. Units are often pre-screened and set aside and tagged as good units for sickle cell since they have been screened for the relevant antibodies. The process of blood banking is amazing. All the way from the logistical and inventory management to the testing and transfusion. I've taken some *very* broad strokes here. Happy to talk more about it if anyone is interested. Source: I was a Hematology and stem cell immunohistochemistry specialist in the lab.

When I was in school, a JW family refused to allow the blood transfusion for their child who was dying without it. After a court order against them, they snuck onto the pediatric floor to swipe the child only to be met and arrested by police stationed just for this. They would rather have a dead child. Crazy

I assume one powerful JW needs a blood transfusion?

They previously relaxed rules on beards, ladies' dresses, higher education, and superficially lightened up on shunning. But this - despite the many glaring holes and lack of thought - is one where there is a body count. It's hard to do even a symbolic about-turn when people have chosen to die over the original hardline doctrine, and unnecessarily at that. Oh, and of course, the course correction comes without apology. JWs be getting desperate.

>The change reflects evolving understanding of medical ethics and member welfare, according to church leadership. Translation: they got tired of being sued and dealing with bad PR from preventable deaths. Religious doctrine evolving to match medical reality is good, but it shouldn't have taken this long when lives were at stake.

“New Light”. Someone on the Watchtower must need surgery.

Ex JW here. Absolutely *f**** these monsters. The people running that religion have been teaching children - CHILDREN - that God wants them to refuse blood transfusions and die to prove their faith. Thousands of people, including children, have died over the last several decades because of the JW's ridiculous, barbaric No Blood policy, which until last week forbade even storing ones own blood for future transfusion. Now they've decided their God is okay with it suddenly. This is nothing but ass-cover for legal reasons. And if any current JWs show up and claim I'm lying, which won't surprise me in the least: I have receipts from your own overlords.

How very 19th century of them. Next, they'll allow the Edison's Devil's Candle in their homes!

Those people who let their kids die before the rule change must be piiiiisssssed!

When nobody is joining your cult you have to let your existing members survive easily avoidable deaths.

F*** them. They almost killed me with this shit 30 years ago. 

Someone high up in the church must have needed a surgery.

That's how religions split into 2 variants. Like Sunni and Shia, Orthodox and Reformists. Society behaves mich like genetics mutation and natural selection.

The fact that children who have no capacity to know or understand whether or not they want to be a part of JW die because of these rules is one of the most evil practices of any religion or faith

F*** that cult with a cactus. Their moronic views on blood transfusions directly led to the death of my uncle. Then the b**** he was married to, who was the JW, started stripping. Like b****, you let him die due to your religion but this is what you decide to go against it with? Hopefully she got run over by a bus.

The blood transfusion rule indirectly killed Prince. He needed a hip replacement but couldn’t do it as a JW. He needed pain killers. He became addicted to opioids.

My sister was a jdub, who skipped a c-section despite her kid’s really big head and insisted on a vaginal delivery. Kid took two days plus forceps and birth injuries to both mother and kid to get him out alive. Jury’s out on why he’s now 6 and still not talking, but sister and husband are no longer jdubs.

Imagine being a groomed child of Jehovahs witness parents going around everyday wondering why youre parents have such wacky ass beliefs and your only answer is "because God said so!" Religion is a f****** scourge akin to plagues and war which is ironic because Israel is waging war all over the place cause "god told them to!" One day we will shed this husk that has held back humanity for 1000s of years, wish I could live to see that day.

I've watched 3 JW die from intestinal bleeds in 2 months on ICU rotations. All families caved at the last minute and wanted a transfusion to save thier family; , the patients did not, but after 48 hours of bleeding they really weren't in the best mind set to make decisions. They just wanted to sleep.

So now every death from these previous restrictions just became twice as pointless. This is a good move, but it only shows the evil that is at the root of JWs.

JW’s believe only 144,000 go to heaven to sit at the right hand of God and the remaining stay here on a renewed earth. Article says they have 144,000 active members in the UK. Maybe God’s chosen are all in the UK right now? That’d be interesting.

Oh, now you change the f****** rules? F*** off.

Transfusions still not allowed, however is some blood just, somehow falls into you, that can't be helped

This is what kept Prince from getting much needed hip surgery.

So they all realized that forcing people to die from things surgery could fix easily would keep their numbers from dropping?

That was what got me into a huge fight w/ my ex, a JW who was not really that into the church when we met. Years later, as she devolved back intot he church, I was like, without a transfusion or ten, I would have DIED as a baby. She didn't care, and didn't seem to have a problem with this, and it was one of many reasons we're not together anymore.

My neighbors were Jehovah's Witnesses and I was friends with them. Their mom posted on Facebook one day that she was diagnosed with leukemia. A little under a week later she posted how it was difficult to treat her due to her religious beliefs on blood transfusions and two days later she passed away. The entire family dropped the religion almost immediately after that.

That's good, always hard to keep these people are alive when their hemoglobin is low and they're at risk of bleeding to death.

Yeah, but what about all Jehovah Witnesses who perished under the old rule?…

But I thought these were God's rules - did he say something?

https://childrenshealthcare.org/ Medical neglect for "religious reasons". Not just this religion or specific medical treatment, letting kids suffer and/or die unnecessary horrible deaths from treatable conditions is still f****** legal in over half the country. Psychotic deranged lunacy and an egregious neglect of childrens basic human rights.

I'd had a lovely transufion and all I'd said to my wife was 'that O negative was good enough for Jehova'

Selena died because she needed a transfusion and her father wouldn’t let it happen.

Wow, imagine that. My grandmother died because of they didn’t allow her a transfusion. Wrecked my life.

Crazy how "god" just up and changed his mind all of a sudden.

I had a coworker who was a Jehovah witness and she died at 36 because she refused a blood transfusion that would have saved her life. How does this make sense!

I’m sure the organization is having a membership problem, so they’ve been loosening restrictions on its members in order to appear like they’re being “progressive”. Don’t be fooled, it’s still a cult. I’ve seen shunning practices in person and they will not even speak your name if you’ve gone against the organization, it’s deplorable.

God changed his mind huh?

This is the shit that pisses me off about religion. It either is allowed or it isn’t. I don’t think the religious books/teachings say you can’t do these things until such time as you hemorrhage membership so it more convenient to allow more stuff that used to be sacrilege.

What higher up needs one?

Oh man luckily their fake rules can be changed.

This used to be the dumbest possible way to die. Looks like Pentecostal snake handlers are moving back into the number 1 s***.

I wish they had changed this before Prince died of an overdose caused by hip pain he wasn’t allowed to fix with surgery.

I have literally had family members die over this stupid rule

Guess they've finally seen enough members die from treatable illness and injury.

It's always interesting when an eternal being, whose knowledge and wisdom is infinite, gives a... not just a rule... but a commandment that people should follow. And then decides to change their mind after a few decades or centuries. A timeframe that is a mere mosquito heartbeat to them.

Imagine being someone whos already lost someone because of this and now humans can just say oh ugh we don't believe that anymore

Can they just do that? Do they have to check with God first? Get something in writing from him that this is cool? Even put it in an email so there's a paper trail.

Ah. Only 20 years after my grandfather died because my grandmother wouldn’t allow him to receive one.

Wait what? Jehovah's witnesses couldn't have blood transfusions? Lmaooo

I wonder how Selena’s family feels

Did God change his mind?

As someone who’s watch many of these people die for their religious beliefs this is disappointing.

They’re okay getting bovine blood aka Hemopure

In case anyone didn't know, "blood transfusions" cover a whole lot of "blood products," some of which (like plasma) wouldn't even qualify under the JW rules. The ban on accepting blood transfusions by the JW sect is another instance of where the performance of a faith has replaced the experience of it.

The headline I was waiting for today

"Sire, we're running out of Jehovah's Witnesses faster than we can replace them." "Curses."

No matter what, glad to hear it

The article claims there are 144,000 members in the UK. That’s a famous number in Christianity. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that only 144,000 people will make it to heaven and the rest of the faithful will remain on earth but it will be a paradise.

"Eases" like it ever made f****** sense.

So they've "changed the rules" in a way that has very minimal actual practical application, but probably allows them to get around some (objectively correct) ruling that they are a death cult that should have their children taken away from them. Any "religion" that teaches children they need to martyr themselves for it needs to be shut down. Freedom of religion should mean the freedom to choose your *own* religion, not the freedom to force your kids into some crazy religion.

I suspect declining membership numbers is causing it. I think that sometimes churches will tweak their beliefs a bit when membership is going down.

Medical TV shows everywhere are in shambles.