I wanted my daughter to live Jehovah’s Witness regrets refusing treatment for sick child after Church tweaks ‘blood rule’

When his four-year-old daughter became gravely ill, David* did not consent to blood treatment because he believed accepting it would mean disobeying Jehovah.

His little girl later died and he somehow learnt to live with his decision, believing that, however painful, he had remained faithful to what he understood God required of him. Now, a major revision by Jehovah’s Witnesses regarding the use of four primary blood components has forced him to revisit that painful chapter of his life.

“I honestly didn’t know how to feel. I still don’t know how to feel,” the father told THE WEEKEND STAR. “Because immediately your mind goes back. You start thinking about the decisions you made and the price you paid because you believed there was no other choice.”

On September 18, the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses announced that accepting red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma is now a matter of individual Christian conscience. The change does not mean Jehovah’s Witnesses are being encouraged or instructed to accept those components. Rather, individual Witnesses may decide whether to accept or refuse them. The longstanding prohibition on transfusions of whole blood remains unchanged.

For David, however, the revision is difficult to reconcile with the position under which he says he made one of the most consequential decisions of his life.

“She was four years old. She was a happy little girl, very playful, very loving,” he recalled. “At that age, they have their whole life ahead of them. You’re thinking about school and watching them grow up. You’re not thinking that you’re going to be burying your child.”

David said his daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumour and one day doctors told the family that she needed blood. At the time, he said, there was little ambiguity in his mind about what his religious beliefs required.

“My understanding was clear ­– we were to abstain from blood. I didn’t see it as something where I could just say, ‘Well, this is my daughter, so I am going to make an exception.’ I believed this was what Jehovah required of us.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses have historically refused blood transfusions based on their interpretation of biblical passages. The denomination primarily uses its own translation of the Bible, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, in which Acts 15:28-29 instructs Christians to “keep abstaining … from blood”. Witnesses believe blood represents life and is sacred to God and have consequently regarded refusing blood transfusions as an act of obedience to Jehovah, even when such treatment is recommended to preserve life.

David said refusing the treatment did not mean he wanted his daughter to die.

“That was my child. Anybody who thinks a father can stand there and watch his four-year-old sick and not be torn doesn’t understand what that situation is like,” he said. “I wanted my daughter to live. But at the same time, I believed that I had to remain faithful to Jehovah.”

“Legally, maybe I had a choice. But spiritually? At that time, I didn’t feel like I did,” he said.

“When you genuinely believe something is against God’s law, you’re not looking at it as one option among several. You’re thinking about being obedient to God.”

He admitted that he does not know if the blood would have definitely saved his child.

“But, as a father, of course the thought enters your mind: What if? And that’s a very difficult question to live with.”

Under the previous Jehovah’s Witness position, members were expected to abstain from whole blood as well as its four primary components red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma. The new distinction has reopened questions David thought he had learnt to live with.

“People before this made decisions based on what we were taught then. Families went through things that cannot be undone,” he said. “Children died. Husbands lost wives. Wives lost husbands. Parents lost children. So, how am I supposed to hear now that certain things are a matter of conscience and just carry on as if that history doesn’t exist?”