Back in nursing school, I had a classmate that was a Jehovah’s Witness, and I asked her what she would do if she had to administer blood. She dodged the question. I know that the sect teaches that its members can not give or receive blood, but how does that relate to other people? Is it against the teachings for a Jehovah’s Witness to aid in a blood transfusion or organ transplant when neither the donor nor the recipient is a Jehovah’s Witness?
The taking of blood products by a Jehovah’s Witness is considered a matter of private conscience, not a law of the church. In theory. In practice, it can get ugly when other members of the person’s Kingdom Hall forget this and exert influence.
Likewise, the participation in any part of handling blood products - collecting and handling donations, working as a lab tech, a nurse or a doctor - are considered a matter of private conscience. That is, it’s up to each individual to search their conscience and figure out what Jehovah wants them to do. Some JW nurses will have nothing to do with blood products at all, which sets them up for some struggles in most hospital settings. Others will ask another nurse to initiate the transfusion (you need two nurses to hang blood anyway, to check and recheck your work, so it’s not like they’re taking them away from another patient), but they will monitor the patient during the transfusions. Others will chose to work in a setting where it just doesn’t come up (like in a doctor’s office or school.) Others have no problem at all giving blood, as they see their role not as a decision maker, but following the decision made by the patient.
The most often cited part of WTS (Watch Tower Society) publications dealing with this issue is w75 4/1 pp. 215-216 Are You Guided by a Sensitive Christian Conscience? I cannot find the original source online, but it’s quoted in full on this message board if you want to read it.
You either do the job or your lose the job.
A friend of mine, a Catholic, took nursing school classes. He was outraged that he was required to learn how to perform abortions. He believed he should have been excused even from having to learn this at all. He wasn’t; it’s required. It’s part of the curriculum, and there aren’t religious exceptions.
Can you imagine where it would lead if we were all free from job obligations on religious grounds…and yet could somehow still manage to keep our jobs? The nice bus driver who refuses to drive the bus on Saturdays, the holy day of rest, but who refuses to get out of the driver’s seat to allow someone else to drive the bus, etc. etc. etc.
You can avoid doing things you don’t want to do…but you cannot deny them to others who don’t hold the same religious values.
And…this question is probably a Great Debates topic, and my answer is also.
I work in a manufacturing and distribution facility that makes surgical implants for many different medical conditions. My new office mate is a Jehovah’s Witness. I have worked with Jehovah’s Witnesses before and always found them to be very honest and hard workers so I didn’t have a problem asking him some questions about working on a product line that will require blood transfusions for a significant number of patients that require them because I was just genuinely curious.
He said that it wasn’t a problem at all for him. He just wouldn’t accept a transfusion himself. He and his wife are fairly devout so I believe it isn’t an issue in general to facilitate it as long as they don’t get a blood transplant themselves.
That may not be a surefire way to avoid it, I’ve had samples taken at a doctor’s office in the US.
That’s not the same thing, though. From what I understand it is the “ingestion” of blood that JW’s are against, rather than just shedding it. Blood tests are fine as far as I know.
Do they avoid taking blood samples as well or just administering blood transfusions the problem?
As far as I know, they don’t mind having blood taken. It’s never been refused by any of my JW patients, anyhow, while at the same time they’ve articulated a refusal to receive blood products. (I ask every patient if they have “any religious or spiritual requirements related to health care I should know about, like not getting blood or not using pork products.”)
Nurses don’t perform abortions, but they definitely assist at them. Women have abortions, or at least D&Cs, for all sorts of reasons, including the removal of a dead fetus 
and he would at least need to know what to do in a situation like that, if he worked in an environment where this knowledge might be necessary.
When we got Plan B at my old hospital, the pharmacy director called a meeting and asked if there were any (his words) conscientious objectors, although he didn’t need to know right then. One person did speak up - a woman whose job duties were such that she probably wouldn’t have handled it anyway. It was kept in the ER, in a dispensing machine.
As for JWs, they will usually accept solid organ transplants, and nurses usually have no problem GIVING blood to patients but they will not TAKE it for themselves. I have never to my knowledge encountered a JW physician, so IDK how they feel about ordering it.
That would be an oxymoron at the least, an anomaly at the worst. Witnesses discourage education, especially secondary schools. Trades are acceptable, but a post-grad JW would be rarer than hen’s teeth.