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Refusal Of Blood Transfusion: Bioethical, Religious And Legal Issues In Croatia

Bioethics is a relatively young science, which is in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary manner interested in all contemporary ethically relevant issues of the modern world, particularly in medicine and health care. Based on it’ s interdisciplinarity and dialogical character, it could be stated that bioethics is an adequate frame for approaching the issue of Jehovah’ s Witnesses, a Christian group that is known world round by its religiously inspired refusal of blood transfusion, due to which they are often exposed to the intolerance of not only physicians, nurses and other health professionals, but also their community, in Croatia and elsewhere. In developed countries - from which bioethics has in fact originated or already became domesticated - its dialogical character inspired a discussion on the pressing issue of Jehovah’ s Witnesses in the context of bioethical theories and principles, emphasizing on the doctrine of Informed Consent that resulted in specific practical solutions acceptable to both physicians and Jehovah’ s Witnesses. This example precisely, convincingly testifies how dialogue is an essential civilized condition for the functioning of modern pluralistic societies and how bioethics can efficiently serve in the fulfillment of this condition. On track of these cognitions, the Croatian Bioethics Society and Department of Social Sciences of the University of Rijeka School of Medicine, organized in year 2000, a public debate in form of a round table titled “ Bioethics and Religious Refusal of Blood Transfusion” with the objective to - in an open interdisciplinary dialogue between all interested parties for this topic - observe the ethical, medical, legal, theological and other issues of the demands of Jehovah’ s Witnesses for bloodless methods of treatment in health institutions in Croatia. We could conclude that this discussion did not only advance the bioethical thought in Croatia, but in the medical-healthcare practice brought to a higher degree of understanding of Jehovah’ s Witnesses and taking into consideration their demands for bloodless treatment. In this context, “ 1st Congress of Croatian Society for Advancement of Bloodless Medicine with International Participation” was organized in autumn of 2005. It is the intention of this paper to give an overview of bioethical, religious and legal issues for Jehovah’ s Witnesses’ refusal of blood transfusion, i.e. demands for bloodless treatment in Croatia, with special emphasis to Croatian legislation and implementation of Croatian Codes of Medical Ethics into everyday clinical practice.

Bioethics; Croatia; Jehovah’ s Witnesses; Refusal of Blood Transfusion; Bloodless Treatment

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