December 12, 2011
What do the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe about organ transplants?
Category: Organ Transplants and Donation
If you could, please add sources as I need this for my coursework.
2 Responses to “What do the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe about organ transplants?”
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December 13th, 2011 at 12:09 am
The Witnesses do not feel that the Bible comments directly on organ transplants; hence, decisions regarding cornea, kidney, or other tissue transplants must be made by the individual Witness.
Jehovah’s Witnesses accept medical and surgical treatment. In fact, scores of them are physicians, even surgeons. But Witnesses are deeply religious people who believe that blood transfusion is forbidden for them by Biblical passages such as: “Only flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not eat” (Genesis 9:3-4); “[You must] pour its blood out and cover it with dust” (Leviticus 17:13-14); and “Abstain from . . . fornication and from what is strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:19-21).1
While these verses are not stated in medical terms, Witnesses view them as ruling out transfusion of whole blood, packed RBCs, and plasma, as well as WBC and platelet administration. However, Witnesses’ religious understanding does not absolutely prohibit the use of components such as albumin, immune globulins, and hemophiliac preparations; each Witness must decide individually if he can accept these.
December 13th, 2011 at 12:20 am
They are OK with it now, but that wasn’t always the case
According to a 1980 issue of Watchtower, the transplantation of human tissue from one human to another human is, “a matter for conscientious decision by each one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
“While the Bible specifically forbids consuming blood, there is no Biblical command pointedly forbidding the taking in of other human tissue. For this reason, 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. See Gal. 6:5 The congregation judicial committee would not take disciplinary action if someone accepted an organ transplant.”
This is a very different stance from the Watchtower‘s position in 1967, which was emphatically negative:
“When men of science conclude that this normal process will no longer work and they suggest removing the organ and replacing it directly with an organ from another human, this is simply a shortcut. Those who submit to such operations are thus living off the flesh of another human. That is cannibalistic. However, in allowing man to eat animal flesh Jehovah God did not grant permission for humans to try to perpetuate their lives by cannibalistically taking into their bodies human flesh, whether chewed or in the form of whole organs or body parts taken from others.”