Blood, Medicine and Jehovah's Witnesses

1959 The "pouring out" of blood

Blood has to be "poured out";

According to the method of handling blood prescribed by the Bible, blood when taken from a body was poured out on the ground as water and covered over with dust... This is because life is in the blood and such shed blood is held sacred before Jehovah God... Consequently, the removal of one's blood, storing it and later putting it back into the SAME person, would be a violation of the Scriptural principles that govern the handling of blood (WT, 15 October 1959, p. 640).

They fail to point out that they are quoting from Lev 17:13,14 which was part of the old law to Israel, and (as they will agree) not applicable to Christians. However, the old law to the Israelites is often quoted as "indicative of God's view" on a subject especially when it tends to support a current doctrine. That same law's ban on shellfish or pigs, for example, is not quoted as "indicative of God's view".