Jehovah’s Witnesses have partly relaxed their longstanding prohibition on the medical use of donated blood, allowing members to receive products derived from donated blood while maintaining their ban on whole-blood transfusions.
The new policy, announced Friday, allows individual members to decide according to personal conscience whether to receive treatments involving the four major components of whole blood, plasma, platelets, red blood cells and white blood cells.
The organisation’s Governing Body member, Geoffrey W. Jackson, said each Christian must make a personal decision about the use of the four components in medical and surgical care.
The revised policy also permits members to decide whether to donate blood for the production of blood-derived medical products that may be used to treat other patients.
However, Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to oppose the transfusion of whole blood and the donation of blood specifically for whole-blood transfusions.
The organisation had earlier revised its policy in March, allowing members to have their own blood stored for possible future medical treatment, although not for use by others.
Jehovah’s Witnesses base their longstanding opposition to blood transfusions on their interpretation of biblical passages instructing believers to “abstain” from blood.
The religious group has faced criticism over the policy, with critics and some former members arguing that refusing blood transfusions can result in preventable deaths.
According to the American Red Cross, blood components such as plasma, red blood cells and platelets are used in treating trauma, anaemia, certain diseases and some cancer patients.
Jehovah’s Witnesses reported about 9.2 million members worldwide in more than 200 countries and territories, including 1.3 million in the United States in 2025.
