Certain points are clear from the foregoing information. Though many people view them as lifesaving, blood transfusions are fraught with risks. Each year thousands die as a result of transfusions; multitudes more get very sick and face long-term consequences. So, even from a physical standpoint, there is wisdom right now in heeding the Biblical command to 'abstain from blood.'—Acts 15:28, 29.
Patients are protected from many hazards if they request nonblood medical management. Skilled physicians who have accepted the challenge of applying this on Jehovah's Witnesses have developed a standard of practice that is safe and effective, as is proved in numerous medical reports. Physicians who provide quality care without blood are not compromising valued medical principles. Rather, they show respect for a patient's right to know risks and benefits so that he can make an informed choice as to what will be done to his body and life.
We are not being naive in this matter, for we realize that not all will agree with this approach. People differ as to conscience, ethics, and medical outlook. Hence, others, including some doctors, may find it hard to accept a patient's decision to abstain from blood. One New York surgeon wrote: "I will never forget 15 years ago, as a young intern when I stood at the bedside of a Jehovah's Witness who bled to death from a duodenal ulcer. The patient's wishes were respected and no transfusions were given, but I can still remember the tremendous frustration as a physician I felt."
He no doubt believed that blood would have been lifesaving. The year after he wrote that, however, The British Journal of Surgery (October 1986) reported that prior to the advent of transfusions, gastrointestinal hemorrhage had "a mortality rate of only 2.5 per cent." Since transfusions became customary, 'most large studies report a 10-percent mortality.' Why a death rate four times as high? The researchers suggested: "Early blood transfusion appears to reverse the hypercoagulable response to haemorrhage thereby encouraging rebleeding." When the Witness with the bleeding ulcer refused blood, his choice may actually have maximized his prospects for survival.
This same surgeon added: "The passage of time and treating many patients has a tendency to change one's perspective, and today I find the trust between a patient and his physician, and the duty to respect a patient's wishes far more important than the new medical technology which surrounds us. . . . It is interesting that the frustration has now given way to a sense of awe and reverence for that particular patient's steadfast faith." The physician concluded: 'It reminds me that I should always respect a patient's personal and religious wishes regardless of my feelings or the consequences.'
You may already realize something that many physicians come to appreciate with "the passage of time and treating many patients." Even with the best of medical care in the finest of hospitals, at some point people die. With or without blood transfusions, they die. All of us are aging, and life's end is approaching. That is not fatalistic. It is realistic. Dying is a fact of life.
The evidence shows that people who disregard God's law on blood often experience immediate or delayed harm; some even die from the blood. Those who survive have not gained endless life. So blood transfusions do not save lives permanently.
Most people who, for religious and/or medical reasons, refuse blood but accept alternative medical therapy do very well. They may thus extend their life for years. But not endlessly.
That all humans are imperfect and are gradually dying leads us to the central truth of what the Bible says about blood. If we understand and appreciate this truth, we will see how blood can actually save life—our life—lastingly.
