A Latvian child who needed open-heart surgery prevailed Thursday in a religious discrimination case against the country’s Ministry of Health, which refused to sign on off on letting him undergo the procedure in another country where he wouldn’t require a blood transfusion.
Names are withheld from the ruling released this morning by the European Court of Justice. It says only that the child was a Jehovah’s Witness who needed surgery because of a congenital heart defect, and that in Latvia the procedure is not possible without a blood transfusion.
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Is it acceptable for a Christian to receive or give a blood transfusion? Since the Bible does not explicitly say, (Acts 15:19-21, 28) Acts 15:20 says, “Instead we should write to them (gentiles) telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.” It is clear from the context that the instructions were against eating / drinking blood, not blood transfusions. Blood transfusions were not even possible in Bible times, so there is no possibility that this Scripture could be referring to blood transfusions. There were many pagan religious practices that involved eating and drinking blood and/or strangling an animal to keep more of its blood in its meat. This is what the Bible speaks against, not blood transfusions. the decision of this nature can only be made between a person and God. One consideration might be that God created billions of people over the centuries, but only four blood types, making it possible to transfuse blood from one person to another, regardless of race or nationality. Perhaps this is an argument for the legitimacy of blood transfusions. A person should carefully and prayerfully consider what God would have him do in regards to receiving/giving a blood transfusion. There is no command either way in Scripture. Blood transfusions are, therefore, a matter of conscience. The article dealing with the courts order is yet another example of persons, in this case parents following the mandates of a legalistic religious organization that make their moral decisions (on many issues for them) to abstain from blood revolving around a few scriptures and non compliance would mean there expulsion from the group.What seems to be so right could be so wrong because more often than not the decisions are based on fear and not personal choice