Blessing Bello, Reporting
JEHOVAH’S Witnesses have announced a significant change to their long-standing position on the medical use of blood, allowing individual members to decide whether to accept or donate four major blood components based on personal conscience.
The organisation said the decision covers red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma and platelets, with individual Witnesses now responsible for making their own decisions concerning the use of the components in medical treatment.
The announcement was made on Friday, September 18, 2026, by the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses at its World Headquarters in Warwick, New York.
According to the organisation, accepting red cells, white cells, plasma or platelets from another person’s blood is now a matter of individual conscience.
Likewise, each Witness is to decide whether to donate blood specifically for the purpose of providing components or fractions for use in treating another person.
However, the organisation stressed that the change does not alter its long-standing position against whole-blood transfusions.
“The long-standing refusal of whole-blood transfusions on religious grounds, a core teaching based on the command to ‘abstain from blood’ (Acts 15:20), is unchanged,” the organisation said.
Paul Gillies, an international spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses at the organisation’s World Headquarters, said the group continued to regard blood and human life as sacred.
“Blood remains sacred to Jehovah’s Witnesses, who continue to regard life and blood as precious gifts from God,” Gillies said.
He explained that decisions involving the four blood components were matters of personal conscience between individual Witnesses and God.
The organisation said the adjustment extended a principle it had previously applied to blood fractions and procedures involving a member’s own blood.
“Since the Bible does not comment on such decisions, they are a matter of individual conscience. That same reasoning has now been extended to the four main components of blood,” it said.
Previous position
For years, Jehovah’s Witnesses had taught that their interpretation of the Biblical command to “abstain from blood” meant rejecting transfusions of whole blood as well as its four primary components — red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma.
The organisation had already allowed individual members to make personal decisions concerning smaller blood fractions derived from those components and certain medical procedures involving their own blood.
Its latest clarification extends that personal-conscience principle to the four primary components themselves when they come from another person’s blood.
The organisation said the Governing Body still regards decisions involving the components as serious matters, but considers that the Bible does not provide specific instructions on the medical use of those products.
Jehovah’s Witnesses also reiterated that they seek medical treatment and do not practise faith healing.
The organisation said its members value life and seek quality medical care from doctors who can provide effective treatment while respecting their religious beliefs, values and personal wishes.
Gillies added that local congregations would not interfere with individual decisions concerning the four components.
“Congregations do not involve themselves in personal decisions that rest with the individual conscience. We will continue to respect and support the personal decisions of our fellow believers,” he said.
The organisation said the change followed “further prayerful consideration” by its Governing Body and was consistent with its understanding that individual Christians must take personal responsibility for decisions that the Bible does not specifically address.
Jehovah’s Witnesses said they have more than nine million members in congregations across more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.
