Continue with: BLOOD: WHOSE CHOICE AND WHOSE CONSCIENCE?

When a patient is a Jehovah's Witness, beyond the matter of choice, conscience comes into the picture. One cannot think only of the physician's conscience. What of the patient's?  Jehovah's Witnesses view life as God's gift represented by blood.  They believe the Bible's command that Christians must "abstain from blood"  (Acts 15:28, 29).  Hence, if a physician paternalistically  violated  such patient's  deep and long-held religious convictions, the result could be tragic. Pope John Paul II has observed that forcing someone to violate his conscience "is the most painful blow inflicted to human dignity.  In a certain sense, it is worse than inflicting physical death, or killing."

While Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood for religious reasons, more and more non-Witness patients are choosing to avoid blood because of risks such as AIDS, non-A, non-B hepatitis, and immunologic reactions. We may present to them our views as to whether such risks seem minor compared to the benefits. But, as the American Medical Association points out, the patient is "the final arbiter as to whether he will take  his chances with the treatment or operation recommended by the doctor or risk living without it. Such is the natural right of the individual, which the law recognizes. 

Related to this, Macklin brought up the risk/benefit issue regarding a Witness "who risked bleeding to death without a transfusion."  A medical student said:  "His thought processes were intact. What do you do when religious beliefs are against the only  source of treatment?"  Macklin reasoned:  "We may believe very strongly this man is making a mistake. But Jehovah's Witnesses believe that to be transfused . .  . [may] result in eternal damnation.  We are trained to do risk-benefit analysis in medicine but if you  weight eternal damnation against remaining life on earth, the analysis assumes a different angle."  

Next time: Conclusion of: BLOOD: WHOSE CHOICE AND WHOSE CONSCIENCE?

From the Watchtower magazine