The Watchtower Society forbids adherents from receiving blood transfusions on the grounds that such a procedure allegedly violates commandments given by God in the Old Testament to not consume blood. Members who proceeded to do so in spite of official teaching have been expelled from their religious community.
Blood transfusions were not possible during biblical times because they did not even exist. These procedures were only made possible due to technical advances in medicine and machinery. Even if blood transfusions technically did go against commandments to not drink blood, consider the instant of King David eating the shewbread to feed himself. The Law allowed for exceptions.
The oral consumption of blood is not the same as intravenously transferring blood from one individual to another who has the same blood type. The first process involves digesting so as to nourish the body, whereas the latter involves a substitute to carry on the same bodily functions. Blood transfusions are not meals.
The blood itself is not sacred, but the life thereof. Blood transfusions are a voluntary undertaking, not coerced. No sacrificial offering or murder is done in the process. Blood transfusions are done to preserve life. Jesus Christ commended self-sacrifice for the welfare of others (John 15:13).
Even if the Jehovah's Witnesses governing body changed its official teaching on this issue, that would only prove it is not guided by God as is claimed. They do not have prophetic insight like real prophets of God had. Both stances cannot be right at the same time, in the same sense.
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