The Watch Tower and Blood Transfusion

Odessa, Tex., April 27 (U. P.) – The father and two brothers of a critically injured woman were arrested to-day when they tried to prevent a doctor from giving her a blood transfusion considered necessary to save her life.

Marie Oliff, 20, was given the blood as the three men were removed from the hospital room where she had lain unconscious for a week.

The girl suffered a compound skull fracture, a fractured pelvis and fractures of both legs in an automobile collision and her physician said she might die if she did not receive a transfusion immediately. Her father and brothers had stood guard at her room and said they would resort to force if anyone tried to give her blood. Members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious sect, they claimed the Bible forbids transfusions…’

Acting under a court order, doctors called police, who ousted the three men from the hospital room… The three were arraigned before Justice of the Peace Jack Parker and held in $250 bond each…

[The above news item is quoted from New York Daily News of April 27, 1952. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that the Bible prohibits blood transfusions by quoting Gen 9:4, Lev 3:17; 7:27; 17:10, 11, 14. These passages deal with eating the blood of animals and not the transfusion of human blood]