Addressing the controversy of blood transfusion in life threatening situations
Arguments about the right to accept or decline transfusing blood to the dying have been on since the 17th Century.
But whether a dying patient deserves to be saved if, indeed, fresh blood transfusion would save his has still not been addressed.
The opponents ask whether it makes any sense that the donor should give the blood of his life to be mixed with another fellows.
Well now, like wise King Solomon wrote in his famous treatise, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter…!”
THE HUMANE PERSPECTIVE
Like Jesus suffered and died to save mankind and gave His life blood so that man may continue to live outside natural law whilst still on earth, blood transfusion is a human way of ‘dying’ so that your neighbour would live.
How?
In blood transfusion, simply, BT, the donor doesn’t have to suffer or die for the recipient: he or she is giving a small pool – one pint – so that the recipient may live. It is a Godly way of ‘being thine brother’s keeper’. Jesus demonstrated it, not for our benefit alone, but for us to replicate it one to another.
The act of donating blood is a higher version of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or giving shelter to the homeless or, perhaps, paying a fine you can afford, to stop someone from going to jail: BT is giving life to the dying…!
When Omni-scient scholar, Ovie Daniel, discussed the subject, he revealed – as only stewards of mysteries of God would, that the comparison of Jesus’ Blood (or the famous Blood of Jesus Christians invoke in times of danger) with the blood of the human donor is like Altruism and Benevolence.
This is his submission:
Jesus giving His natural life (that is His Blood) through the process of suffering, wrongly accused, tortured and hung on the cross, was the most definitive example of altruism (which means, inconveniencing one’s self to make your neighbour comfortable); while benevolence is giving a little out of your abundance to help your neighbour out of an inconveniencing situation or condition.
But BT goes a shade deeper than that: it is helping your neighbour to cheat death, or evade dying for as long as is legally possible.
People have been known to donate important and sensitive organs so that their loved ones may continue to live, howbeit, a little longer: that, truly, is a deep demonstration of sacrifice and Godly love.
At one time in Nigeria when people didn’t have the lever for crime as they do today, healthy but jobless people were known to line up or hang around hospitals to sell a pint of their own blood for about N9,000 (in the 1980s, that was a sizeable amount).
Indeed, many were known to have made it a regular trade so much that and the hospitals had to restrain them by giving time count, about two or three weeks for them to replenish and recuperate enough, before they can sell from their blood stream again.
Some others also, have been known to donate one of two organs – like the kidney – either to help loved ones out of critical health conditions; while others, especially in Asian countries, sell their organs to help themselves and families out of poverty. In all the situations above, the action could be defined as self sacrifice – and it is a personal decision.
BLOOD, ORGAN REJECTION
It is on record that the bodies of recipients of organs most times reject the implanted organs, forcing doctors to inject what they call ‘suppressants’ to ‘persuade’ the host body to ‘accommodate’ the received organ and allow it to ‘live’ in the body and perform the functions of the failed organ.
This living drama is, in a way, akin to nations that close their borders to prevent refugees fleeing from war, natural disaster and hunger, etc, from entering into their country.
But does recipient bodies reject blood transfused into him or her?
Late American screen goddess, Elizabeth Taylor paid cash for the entire blood of her lover and bodyguard, Bobby (or so he was called), who was dying of H.I.V aids to be drained out and fresh blood transfused.
Did he survive? No. The guy was reported to have committed suicide when he saw he was dying inspite of the massive transfusion.
So whether organ or blood, the truth remains that both are the manifest life of a single human entity; though not expected to be shared like in donation or sale, but you would be guilty of letting a life be lost when you could have helped to prevent death at any point.
LEGAL COMPLICATIONS
Addressing the reason for rejection of transfused blood or implanted organs, Ovie Daniel told this writer that the blood of the individual person is a fountain of legal complications.
“In the blood is the ancestral history of legal charges and judgments since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. What that means is that in the blood of every person, the past, the present and the future dwell together at once.
“Each unit entity is fraught with legal arguments, charges, illnesses of one kind or the other, etc. All the conflicts and arguments that define the human life wrapped up in the individual’s DNA, deep and transcendental as they are, are executed by the blood of every person.
All these are classified under The Laws of Genetics, (Heredity and Variation). No one person is like the other and on this point, however, it would amount to legal confusion to mix one blood with the other.
And if the contrasts are grave enough, a recipient body or blood would not accommodate another blood or organ’s legal conflict: that would be like opening your doors to receive an Ebola infected patient into your house because the place he or she is quarantined has been razed down by fire.”
