LAGOS, Nigeria — The Humanist Enabling Life Project (HELP), an advocacy group, has called on Jehovah’s Witnesses to abolish its ban on whole-blood transfusions despite a new policy giving members greater personal choice over some blood components.
In a statement emailed to The Trent by its director, Leo Igwe, on Saturday, September 19, 2026, HELP welcomed the policy change but said it did not go far enough.
The group said the continuing prohibition on whole-blood transfusions remained a threat to public health and urged the religious organisation to rescind it without reservation.
The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses announced the revised policy in a statement published on September 18.
According to the statement, “the decision to accept red cells, white cells, plasma or platelets from another person’s blood is a matter of personal conscience”.
It also said each member would “decide whether or not to donate blood for the clearly expressed purpose of providing components or fractions for use by another person”.
The organisation, however, said its position on whole blood had not changed.
“The long-standing refusal of whole-blood transfusions on religious grounds, a core teaching based on the command to ‘abstain from blood’ (Acts 15:20), is unchanged,” the statement said.
HELP said the decision could bring relief to members who needed transfusions but argued that retaining the whole-blood prohibition left the policy confused and incomplete.
HELP accused Jehovah’s Witnesses of maintaining contradictory positions by allowing members to make personal decisions about major blood components while preserving the religious prohibition on whole blood.
“Jehovah’s Witnesses should stop approbating and reprobating on blood transfusion,” the group said.
HELP said the organisation should acknowledge that it had erred and misled members over the years. It also called for an explicit apology to people affected by the policy.
The group alleged that the prohibition had contributed to deaths and lasting health impairments among members around the world.
Those claims were made in the emailed statement and were not accompanied by figures.
HELP said allowing individual members to accept some blood components while retaining the wider ban could create uncertainty for people making urgent medical decisions.
HELP referred to a case in Calabar, Nigeria, in which the Basic Rights Counsel obtained a court order authorising treatment for a baby who needed a blood transfusion.
HELP praised the legal intervention last year.
The group alleged that representatives of Jehovah’s Witnesses at the clinic had “connived and pressured the parent to get the baby discharged against medical advice”.
The allegation could not be independently verified.
HELP said it had not established what eventually happened to the child or whether the child survived.
The group also cited reports of children dying after parents or relatives who belonged to Jehovah’s Witnesses refused blood transfusions on their behalf.
HELP said it was seeking a complete reversal of the policy, rather than a partial relaxation.
“HELP does not want a JW ease on the prohibition on blood transfusion,” the group said. “Jehovah’s Witnesses should rescind the ban without reservation and apologise to the world.”
The group said the organisation should acknowledge the harm the policy had caused and formally withdraw the prohibition.
