By Leo Igwe
The Humanist Enabling Life Project (HELP) welcomes the recent announcement by the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) to ease its position on blood transfusion.
The shift brings relief to long-suffering members who need blood transfusions around the globe. But going by the details of the release, the move did not go far enough. JW policy on blood transfusion still poses a serious threat to public health worldwide.
In a press statement issued on its website on September 18, 2026, the Governing Body of JW announced that “the decision to accept red cells, white cells, plasma or platelets from another person’s blood is a matter of personal conscience”.
It also stated that each member would “decide whether or not to donate blood for the clearly expressed purpose of providing components or fractions for use by another person”. Then it stated, “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”.
Jehovah’s Witnesses should stop approving and reprobating blood transfusion. Its ban on blood transfusion is a harmful health policy that has had an adverse health effect on people. Jehovah’s Witnesses should acknowledge that they have erred and misled their members over the years. JW should issue an express apology for this vicious policy and the damage it has caused. Stating that the organisation still maintains its ban on blood transfusion while allowing it on personal grounds is confusing. It is an indication that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have not realised their grievous mistake. Jehovah’s Witnesses’ controversial and despicable policy on blood transfusion has cost so many lives. The policy has led to the death and health impairment of many people around the globe.
Last year, HELP applauded the Basic Rights Counsel Initiative for obtaining a court order to treat a baby who needed a blood transfusion in Calabar, Nigeria. HELP was told that Jehovah’s Witnesses officers at the clinic connived and pressured the parent to get the baby discharged against medical advice. No one knows what eventually happened to the baby; whether the baby died or survived. There have been many cases where children died because their JW parents or family members denied them blood transfusion.
HELP does not want a JW ease on the prohibition on blood transfusion. Jehovah’s Witnesses should rescind the ban without reservation and apologise to the world.
Leo Igwe directs the Humanist Enabling Life Project.
