Genesis 9:4
Genesis 9:44But you must not eat meat with its lifeblood still in it.
JWs cite — "you must not eat flesh with its soul, its blood" — as the foundational command for refusing whole-blood transfusions. The prohibition is read as a universal, permanent law predating the Mosaic covenant and therefore binding on all humanity. Blood represents the soul (nephesh) and belongs to God alone; receiving whole blood, orally or intravenously, is held to dishonour God. Since September 2026 the four main components of donor blood have been a matter of personal conscience.
is a food-preparation instruction about eating raw, unbled meat: "you must not eat flesh with its soul, its blood." The context is dietary — Noah is given permission to eat animals but must drain the blood first. A transfusion does not enter the stomach; it is a tissue transplant that sustains life rather than consuming it. Even Orthodox Jews, who take Noahide blood laws far more seriously than any Christian group, have no objection to transfusions — the rabbinical consensus distinguishes eating blood (forbidden) from medical use (permitted). Breast milk — especially colostrum — contains hundreds of thousands of whole white blood cells per millilitre, yet for decades, until September 2026, the Watchtower classed white blood cells as a forbidden primary component. God designed breast milk to contain the very cells the Watchtower banned. The same blood component cannot be sinful in hospital and sacred in nursery — the component/fraction line was a human distinction, not a biblical principle, and the line that remains between the four components and whole blood is no different.