The 22 May 1994 issue of Awake! is the most frequently cited, and most frequently misdescribed, publication in the history of the blood policy. This page sets out exactly what the issue says, who it names, what it records about each of them, and what the internet claim about its cover gets wrong.
Last reviewed 19 September 2026
AWAKE!22 May 1994“Youths Who Put God First”Feature articles, pages 3 to 15
Set in type, not reproduced. The artwork of the cover is not shown here. Still published on the organisation’s own online library, so every quotation below can be checked against it.
This issue is the most frequently cited publication in the history of the blood policy, and the most frequently misdescribed. Both things matter, so this page does two jobs: it sets out precisely what the issue records, and it sets out precisely what it does not.
What it records is serious enough on its own. The organisation’s own general-interest magazine told its readers that young Witnesses were dying for putting God first, that blood transfusions were the issue, and then named six of them.
In brief
The issue’s contents page framed young Witnesses who refused blood as continuing a tradition of youths who ‘died for putting God first’, ‘with blood transfusions the issue’. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The cover is a montage of photographs of young people. The issue does not identify them or say what happened to them. The common claim that ‘every child on the cover died’ is not supported by the publication and we do not repeat it.
In former times thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it, only today the drama is played out in hospitals and courtrooms, with blood transfusions the issue.
This sentence is the publication’s own framing, on its own contents page: it places young people who refuse blood in a line of youths who ‘died for putting God first’, and it says they ‘are still doing it’. Both statements are the organisation’s, not a critic’s.
The 22 May 1994 issue of Awake! introduced its cover series by stating that youths ‘are still’ dying for putting God first, ‘with blood transfusions the issue’. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
22 May 1994 · p.2 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“In former times thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it, only today the drama is played out in hospitals and courtrooms, with blood transfusions the issue.”
The contents page introduces the series ‘Youths Who Put God First’ on pages 3–15. It does not name or count the young people pictured on the cover.
Notes. The cover (a montage of photographs of young people beneath the title) is not reproduced on the Online Library; a low-resolution scan hosted by a discovery site was viewed but the number of people pictured could not be reliably counted from it.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g-1994-0522-contents
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The magazine’s own 1994 annual index files the series under ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ and labels it ‘(Blood Issue)’.
22 May 1994 · pp.1-32 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’ … Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal””
The issue runs to 32 pages and contains twelve items. The official publication file records the page range of each: Page Two (2); ‘He “Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth”’ (3-8); ‘Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”’ (9-15); ‘Alligators—Rare, White, and Blue-Eyed!’ (16-17); ‘What If I Fall For an Unbeliever?’ (18-20); ‘Is the Bible Irrelevant?’ (21); ‘Your Chop Your Signature’ (22-24); ‘Put Humor Into Your Life’ (25-27); ‘Watching the World’ (28-29); ‘From Our Readers’ (30); ‘Contaminated Blood Given to Hemophiliacs’ (31); ‘The “Godly Fear” District Convention Is At Hand’ (32). The two blood articles occupy pages 3-15, thirteen of the issue's thirty-two pages. Neither of them is headed ‘Youths Who Put God First’: that is the cover title. Inside the issue the phrase occurs only in the page 2 contents item, which reads ‘Youths Who Put God First 3-15’ (Watchtower Online Library document 101994360, par. 2; src-g-1994-0522-contents), and in the magazine’s own 1994 annual index.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Awake!, 22 May 1994 (complete issue; official publication file g_E_19940522.jwpub)
Confidence note. The issue listing was opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026, and the official publication file g_E_19940522.jwpub (linked from the JW.org pub-media service at https://cfp2.jw-cdn.org/a/044135e/2/o/g_E_19940522.jwpub) was downloaded and its publication database read directly; the twelve documents and their first and last page numbers are taken from that file. Both steps were repeated independently by the auditor on 19 September 2026: the twelve rows of the Document table and their FirstPageNumber and LastPageNumber values match, and the pub-media service offers this issue in JWPUB format only, with an empty pubImage entry.
Notes. The official publication file contains no multimedia records at all (the Multimedia, DocumentMultimedia and ExtractMultimedia tables are empty and the manifest lists no images), so the authorised digital edition of this issue carries no photographs or illustrations. The printed issue did carry pictures: the Watchtower Online Library text retains picture and picture-credit lines for pages 16, 19, 21, 23, 26, 31 and 32. There is no such line in either of the two blood articles.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-issue-contents-map
22 May 1994 · p.31 · pars. 1-6 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“BLOOD has become a two-billion-dollar-a-year business. The pursuit of profits from it has resulted in a gigantic tragedy in France. HIV-contaminated blood caused the death of 250 hemophiliacs in AIDS-related illnesses, with hundreds more infected.”
A further item in the same issue, on page 31, summarising the contaminated-blood scandals in France, Germany, Canada and Spain and the United States factor VIII warnings, citing The Boston Globe, Guardian Weekly, The Globe and Mail, The Medical Post, The New York Times and Dateline NBC.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Contaminated Blood Given to Hemophiliacs
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 December 1994 · p.31 · entry under ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Youths Who Put God First (Blood Issue), 5/22”
The magazine’s own annual index for 1994 lists the series under ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ and labels it, in parentheses, ‘Blood Issue’. The same index lists the page 31 item as ‘Contaminated Blood to Hemophiliacs, 5/22’ under ‘Health and Medicine’.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Index to Volume 75 of Awake!
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
The same issue carried an item on page 31 reporting the infection of haemophiliacs with HIV-contaminated blood products in France, Germany, Canada and Spain, and the delayed withdrawal of unheated factor VIII in the United States. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The item is sourced to The Boston Globe, Guardian Weekly, The Globe and Mail, The Medical Post, The New York Times and Dateline NBC, and the events it describes are matters of public record in each country.
22 May 1994 · p.31 · pars. 1-6 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“BLOOD has become a two-billion-dollar-a-year business. The pursuit of profits from it has resulted in a gigantic tragedy in France. HIV-contaminated blood caused the death of 250 hemophiliacs in AIDS-related illnesses, with hundreds more infected.”
A further item in the same issue, on page 31, summarising the contaminated-blood scandals in France, Germany, Canada and Spain and the United States factor VIII warnings, citing The Boston Globe, Guardian Weekly, The Globe and Mail, The Medical Post, The New York Times and Dateline NBC.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Contaminated Blood Given to Hemophiliacs
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
The table records only what the two articles themselves state. Ages are as given in the issue. “Outcome” is the article’s wording or a close paraphrase; where the article records survival, that is the position at the time of writing in 1994, and we make no statement about anyone’s life since.
Named in Awake!, 22 May 1994, pages 3–15
Name
Age
Place
Condition
What was refused
Outcome as recorded
Source
Adrian Yeatts
14 at diagnosis (15 in later accounts)
Newfoundland, Canada
Abdominal lymphoma, then leukaemia (1993)
Blood transfusions; court declared him a mature minor
Died Died 13 September 1993, the day after his baptism
Alive in 1994 Transfused under a court order (“once”, per the magazine; the judgment records several transfusions over about six weeks — see below); “no further transfusions”; “did not die from her leukemia”
The two feature articles in the 22 May 1994 Awake! name six young people who refused blood. The issue records that three died (Adrian Yeatts, 14; Lenae Martinez, 12; Lisa Kosack, 12) and that three were alive at the time of writing (the three-year-old in Ohio, 3; the New York seventeen-year-old, 17; E.G., 17). Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
22 May 1994 · pp.3-8 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I just could not live with myself if I am given blood.”
The article, narrated by his father, describes Adrian Yeatts of Newfoundland, Canada, aged 14, diagnosed with a fast-growing abdominal lymphoma in March 1993 and subsequently leukaemia. Newfoundland’s Supreme Court (Justice Robert Wells) held in July 1993 that he was a mature minor whose refusal of blood would be respected. He was baptised in a hospital physiotherapy tank on 12 September 1993 and the article records that he died the next day. A boxed item describes a bloodless heart transplant for three-year-old the three-year-old in Ohio of Ohio in October 1993, reported a month later as doing well. The article also records the medical advice as the family reported it: Dr Jardine 'explained that a very aggressive chemotherapy program with blood transfusions was the only way Adrian could possibly live'; 'chemotherapy was started, without the transfusions'; and it closes by saying that he rejected transfusions 'that could conceivably have extended his present life'.
22 May 1994 · pp.9-15 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“After a long, difficult night, at 6:30 a.m., September 22, 1993, Lenae fell asleep in death in the arms of her mother.”
The article profiles four young people: Lenae Martinez, 12, Fresno, California, leukaemia — recorded as having died on 22 September 1993; the New York seventeen-year-old, 17, New York City, inflammatory bowel disease — ‘Crystal never needed blood, and none was ever transfused’; Lisa Kosack, 12, Toronto, acute myeloid leukaemia — ‘She died peacefully at home, in the loving arms of her mother and father’; E.G., 17, Chicago, leukaemia — ‘Ernestine had no further transfusions, and she did not die from her leukemia.’ E.G. (par. 59) was transfused once under a trial-court order 'in spite of her vigorous protests'; the Illinois Appellate Court and the Illinois Supreme Court then upheld her right to refuse (pars. 60-61), and the article records that she 'had no further transfusions, and she did not die from her leukemia' (par. 63).
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have ‘Power Beyond What Is Normal’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; names, ages, places and outcome sentences confirmed from the article text.
Notes. Together with the first article, the issue names six young people: three recorded as having died and three recorded as alive at the time of writing.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g-1994-0522-power-beyond-normal
The first article is narrated by Adrian’s father. It describes a fast-growing abdominal tumour found in March 1993, a diagnosis of lymphoma and then leukaemia, and a child-welfare application to Newfoundland’s Supreme Court, which ruled in July 1993 that he was a mature minor whose refusal of blood would be respected. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
I just could not live with myself if I am given blood.
Dr. Jardine now explained that a very aggressive chemotherapy program with blood transfusions was the only way Adrian could possibly live. Adrian, however, still refused blood transfusions. Chemotherapy was started, without the transfusions.
The article records the medical advice as the family reported it: the treating doctor ‘explained that a very aggressive chemotherapy program with blood transfusions was the only way Adrian could possibly live’, and ‘chemotherapy was started, without the transfusions’. The magazine itself closes by saying that he rejected transfusions ‘that could conceivably have extended his present life’. We quote those sentences because they are the organisation’s own record of what the doctors said. We do not say what would have happened had he accepted; the article does not, and nobody can. It records a fourteen-year-old’s conviction, a court’s respect for it, and his death. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The article records three further things about the days before his death, each of them the magazine’s own account.
The article records that Adrian Yeatts, then fourteen, was asked directly by his oncologist whether he realised he could die without a transfusion and answered ‘Yes’ and ‘If that’s what it takes’, and that after the biopsy the doctor said aggressive chemotherapy with transfusions was the only way he could possibly live. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The article presents this exchange as evidence of an informed and independent decision, and quotes his counsel’s satisfaction that ‘he exercised a mind of his own’.
22 May 1994 · p.4 · pars. 11-14 (Watchtower Online Library paragraph ids p11-p14) · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Dr. Jardine asked, “Do you realize that you could die if you don’t take a blood transfusion?” “Yes.” “And you’re willing to do that?” “If that’s what it takes.””
The exchange is reported as taking place at the Dr. Charles A. Janeway Child Health Centre, St John’s, Newfoundland, while Adrian Yeatts, then 14, was awaiting a biopsy to be performed without blood. The oncologist is named in the article as Dr Lawrence Jardine.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · p.5 · par. 17 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“The biopsy was performed on March 18. It showed that Adrian had a large lymphoma tumor. A subsequent bone marrow biopsy confirmed the fear that he had developed leukemia.”
The article dates the biopsy to 18 March 1993 and records that the treating oncologist then said aggressive chemotherapy with blood transfusions was the only way Adrian could possibly live, and that chemotherapy was begun without transfusions.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · pp.3-8 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I just could not live with myself if I am given blood.”
The article, narrated by his father, describes Adrian Yeatts of Newfoundland, Canada, aged 14, diagnosed with a fast-growing abdominal lymphoma in March 1993 and subsequently leukaemia. Newfoundland’s Supreme Court (Justice Robert Wells) held in July 1993 that he was a mature minor whose refusal of blood would be respected. He was baptised in a hospital physiotherapy tank on 12 September 1993 and the article records that he died the next day. A boxed item describes a bloodless heart transplant for three-year-old the three-year-old in Ohio of Ohio in October 1993, reported a month later as doing well. The article also records the medical advice as the family reported it: Dr Jardine 'explained that a very aggressive chemotherapy program with blood transfusions was the only way Adrian could possibly live'; 'chemotherapy was started, without the transfusions'; and it closes by saying that he rejected transfusions 'that could conceivably have extended his present life'.
In a signed affidavit put before the Supreme Court of Newfoundland, Adrian Yeatts wrote that he knew he could die without blood, that no one had talked him into his decision, and that a transfusion ‘will be like raping me, molesting my body’, ending ‘Please respect me and my wishes.’ Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The court accepted the affidavit and the judge interviewed the boy in hospital before declaring him a mature minor.
22 May 1994 · p.6 · par. 24 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I won’t agree to blood or let it be used; no way. I know I could die if no blood is used. But that is my decision. No one talked me into that. … The way I feel is that if I’m given any blood that will be like raping me, molesting my body. … Please respect me and my wishes.”
Extracts from a signed affidavit prepared by Adrian, who was too ill to appear, and put before the Supreme Court of Newfoundland on Monday 19 July 1993 by counsel, David C. Day QC. The article prints the affidavit at length. The second ellipsis in the quotation spans both further affidavit text (‘I don’t want my body if that happens… I’ll resist use of blood.’) and the magazine’s own narration, ‘Adrian’s affidavit ended with this appeal:’; the closing sentence is the affidavit’s, but it is introduced by the magazine and not printed continuously with the rest.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. The article twice uses the language of sexual violation — here and in Lisa Kosack’s evidence on page 13 — to describe a transfusion given against the patient’s will.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-yeatts-affidavit
Wells J dismissed the Director of Child Welfare’s applications, held that blood had ‘not been demonstrated to be essential’ and ‘could be harmful’ in the circumstances, and declared the boy a mature minor whose wish for treatment without blood was to be respected; the Supreme Court of Canada later summarised the same decision, reported as Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91, and recorded that Wells J noted the treatment was less than forty per cent likely to be effective, was not ‘essential’, and was contrary to the mature adolescent’s wishes. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Supreme Court of Canada, 26 June 2009
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation cites decisions of this kind as vindications of conscience and of children’s rights, a framing it made explicit in the companion 1995 article.
22 May 1994 · pp.6-8 · pars. 29-37 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“For the following reasons, the applications of the Director of Child Welfare are dismissed; the child is not in need of protection; the use of blood or blood products for the purposes of blood transfusion or injection have not been demonstrated to be essential, and in the particular circumstances of this case, could be harmful.”
The article prints extracts from the decision of Wells J of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland, given on Monday 19 July 1993, and states that the decision was later published in the Human Rights Law Journal of 30 September 1993. Further extracts record the judge’s findings that the boy was ‘mature beyond any normal expectation’ and that forcing treatment on him would drastically reduce his suitability for that treatment.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. The judgment is reported as Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91 (Nfld. S.C.); the Human Rights Law Journal printing cited by the magazine was not opened.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-yeatts-wells-decision
26 June 2009 · pp.[2009] 2 S.C.R. 181 at 221-222 · paras. 62-63 (and para. 128 per McLachlin CJ) · Abella J · Supreme Court of Canada
“In Re L.D.K. (1985), 48 R.F.L. (2d) 164 (Ont. Prov. Ct. (Fam. Div.)), for example, the patient was a 12-year-old girl suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia. … In Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91 (Nfld. S.C.), the court was faced with an application from the Director of Child Welfare to impose treatment on a 15-year-old Jehovah’s Witness who had cancer.”
The Supreme Court of Canada’s own summary of the two Canadian decisions described in the 22 May 1994 Awake!. Of Re L.D.K. the Court records that two doctors put the odds of a favourable outcome at around 30 per cent, that Main Prov. Ct. J. found ‘the emotional trauma [the child] would experience’ in forced treatment would outweigh the anticipated benefits (p. 169), and that he concluded ‘[T]his child’s life is equally in danger whichever path is taken’ (p. 170). Of Re A.Y. it records that Wells J noted the treatment was less than 40 per cent likely to be effective, was not ‘essential’, and was contrary to the mature adolescent’s wishes, so that he was not a child in need of protection. At para. 128 the Chief Justice describes the same boy as ‘a 15-year-old boy suffering from terminal cancer’.
Provenance and verification note for Supreme Court of Canada, A.C. v. Manitoba (Director of Child and Family Services), 2009 SCC 30, [2009] 2 S.C.R. 181
Confidence note. The official Supreme Court of Canada PDF of the judgment was downloaded from decisions.scc-csc.ca (with a Referer header, since the file otherwise returns 403), converted to text with pdftotext and read; paragraphs 62, 63 and 128 were confirmed word for word.
Notes. This is the best available confirmation of the citations for the Kosack and Yeatts proceedings. Neither law report was opened directly; CanLII is bot-blocked in this environment.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-scc-ac-paras-62-63
After the hearing the treating doctor told Adrian Yeatts he had one or two weeks to live; he lived a further eight weeks, was baptised in a hospital physiotherapy tank on 12 September 1993 and died the next day. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · p.8 · par. 42 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“So the nurses kindly arranged for him to use one of the stainless steel tanks in the physiotherapy room. He was baptized there September 12; he died the next day, September 13.”
The closing of the mother’s account. Baptism is the act by which a person formally becomes one of Jehovah’s Witnesses; Adrian was baptised the day before he died, having refused blood since March of that year.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
The article closes in the magazine’s own voice: ‘By rejecting blood transfusions that could conceivably have extended his present life, Adrian Yeatts showed himself to be one of the many young people who put God first.’ Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: JW.org currently describes as a myth the statement that Witnesses, including children, die each year through refusing blood, and adds that ‘no one can say for certain that a patient will die because of refusing blood or will live because of accepting it’.
22 May 1994 · p.8 · par. 45 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“By rejecting blood transfusions that could conceivably have extended his present life, Adrian Yeatts showed himself to be one of the many young people who put God first.”
The final sentence of the article, written in the magazine’s own voice rather than a family member’s.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · p.2 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“In former times thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it, only today the drama is played out in hospitals and courtrooms, with blood transfusions the issue.”
The contents page introduces the series ‘Youths Who Put God First’ on pages 3–15. It does not name or count the young people pictured on the cover.
Notes. The cover (a montage of photographs of young people beneath the title) is not reproduced on the Online Library; a low-resolution scan hosted by a discovery site was viewed but the number of people pictured could not be reliably counted from it.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g-1994-0522-contents
The second article, “Youths Who Have ‘Power Beyond What Is Normal’”, profiles four more young people. Lenae Martinez, twelve, of Fresno, California, is the first.
At 6:30 a.m., September 22, 1993, Lenae fell asleep in death in the arms of her mother.
Doctors told twelve-year-old Lenae Martinez, with her parents out of the room, that transfusions would prolong her life by about three to six months and that without blood she would die within days; she answered that she would not turn away from God ‘for six months of life’. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The article presents the exchange as proof of her maturity, and records that the doctors and lawyer went out and told her parents ‘she thinks and talks like an adult and is able to make her own decisions’.
22 May 1994 · p.10 · pars. 12-17 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
““But blood transfusions will prolong your life. If you refuse blood, you will die in a few days.” “If I take blood,” Lenae asked, “how long will that prolong my life?” “About three to six months,” they answered.”
Two doctors and a lawyer spoke to Lenae Martinez, 12, alone at Valley Children’s Hospital, Fresno, California, having asked her parents to leave. She replied that she would not turn away from God ‘for six months of life’.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
No court order was sought in Lenae Martinez’s case: a hospital ethics committee at Valley Children’s Hospital in Fresno, including a professor of ethics from Fresno State University, treated her as a mature minor, and she died at 6:30 a.m. on 22 September 1993. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The article records that her parents and friends were ‘deeply grateful’ that the hospital had discerned her maturity and that no court case was necessary.
22 May 1994 · p.10 · par. 18 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“This committee, made up of doctors and other health-care professionals, along with a professor of ethics from Fresno State University, made the decision to allow Lenae to make her own decisions with regard to her medical treatment. They considered Lenae a mature minor. No court order was sought.”
The article records that the hospital’s ethics committee, not a court, decided that Lenae was a mature minor. Hers is the only one of the four accounts in this article in which no court became involved.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · p.10 · pars. 19-20 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“After a long, difficult night, at 6:30 a.m., September 22, 1993, Lenae fell asleep in death in the arms of her mother. … There were 482 who attended the memorial service, including doctors, nurses, and teachers, who had been impressed by Lenae’s faith and integrity.”
The article gives the date and hour of death and the attendance at the memorial service, and adds that her parents and friends were ‘deeply grateful’ that no court case had been necessary.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Lisa Kosack, twelve, of Toronto, was the subject of the Ontario proceedings usually cited as Re L.D.K. The article gives her own account of the night she was first transfused.
She died peacefully at home, in the loving arms of her mother and father.
Lisa Kosack, twelve, described being transfused at midnight on her first night at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children after she had told the nurse she was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses; the hospital sought a court order the next morning, and after a five-day hearing held at the hospital Judge Main found she had been discriminated against on grounds of religion and age under section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter and that her section 7 right to security of the person had been infringed. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The judge described her as ‘a beautiful, extremely intelligent, articulate, courteous, sensitive and, most importantly, a courageous person’ with ‘wisdom and maturity well beyond her years’, and dismissed the application.
22 May 1994 · p.12 · par. 32 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“At midnight a nurse came in and said: ‘I have to give you some blood.’ I cried out: ‘I can’t take blood because I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses! I hope you know that! I hope you know that!’ ‘Well, yes, I do,’ she said, and immediately pulled out my IV and shoved in the blood. I was crying and becoming hysterical.”
Lisa Kosack’s own account, quoted in the article, of her first night at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. She was 12 and had acute myeloid leukaemia. The hospital sought a court order the following morning.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · p.14 · pars. 46-51 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I must find that she has been discriminated against on the basis of her religion and her age pursuant to s. 15(1). In these circumstances, upon being given a blood transfusion, her right to the security of her person pursuant to s. 7 was infringed.”
Extracts printed in the article from the decision of Judge Main. The sections cited are sections 7 and 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He also said he refused to make any order that would put the child through the ordeal of a forced transfusion, described her as ‘courageous’ with ‘wisdom and maturity well beyond her years’, and dismissed the application.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. Reported as Re L.D.K. (1985), 48 R.F.L. (2d) 164 (Ont. Prov. Ct. (Fam. Div.)). The law report itself was not opened; the citation is confirmed from the Supreme Court of Canada.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-kosack-judgment
22 May 1994 · pp.13-14 · pars. 35-44 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
““Do you want to die?” “No, I don’t think anybody wants to die, but if I do die I’m not going to be scared, because I know that I have the hope of everlasting life in a paradise on earth.””
Lisa gave evidence on the fourth day of a five-day hearing held in a room at the hospital before Judge David R. Main, with Lisa present throughout. The article reports that the doctors prescribed multiple transfusions and intensive chemotherapy and put the rate of cure at 30 per cent.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
The proceedings the article describes are reported as Re L.D.K. (1985), 48 R.F.L. (2d) 164 (Ontario Provincial Court, Family Division); the Supreme Court of Canada summarised them in A.C. v. Manitoba, recording that two doctors put the odds of a favourable outcome at about thirty per cent and that the judge found forced treatment would cause emotional trauma outweighing the anticipated benefit. Source: Supreme Court of Canada, 26 June 2009Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
26 June 2009 · pp.[2009] 2 S.C.R. 181 at 221-222 · paras. 62-63 (and para. 128 per McLachlin CJ) · Abella J · Supreme Court of Canada
“In Re L.D.K. (1985), 48 R.F.L. (2d) 164 (Ont. Prov. Ct. (Fam. Div.)), for example, the patient was a 12-year-old girl suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia. … In Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91 (Nfld. S.C.), the court was faced with an application from the Director of Child Welfare to impose treatment on a 15-year-old Jehovah’s Witness who had cancer.”
The Supreme Court of Canada’s own summary of the two Canadian decisions described in the 22 May 1994 Awake!. Of Re L.D.K. the Court records that two doctors put the odds of a favourable outcome at around 30 per cent, that Main Prov. Ct. J. found ‘the emotional trauma [the child] would experience’ in forced treatment would outweigh the anticipated benefits (p. 169), and that he concluded ‘[T]his child’s life is equally in danger whichever path is taken’ (p. 170). Of Re A.Y. it records that Wells J noted the treatment was less than 40 per cent likely to be effective, was not ‘essential’, and was contrary to the mature adolescent’s wishes, so that he was not a child in need of protection. At para. 128 the Chief Justice describes the same boy as ‘a 15-year-old boy suffering from terminal cancer’.
Provenance and verification note for Supreme Court of Canada, A.C. v. Manitoba (Director of Child and Family Services), 2009 SCC 30, [2009] 2 S.C.R. 181
Confidence note. The official Supreme Court of Canada PDF of the judgment was downloaded from decisions.scc-csc.ca (with a Referer header, since the file otherwise returns 403), converted to text with pdftotext and read; paragraphs 62, 63 and 128 were confirmed word for word.
Notes. This is the best available confirmation of the citations for the Kosack and Yeatts proceedings. Neither law report was opened directly; CanLII is bot-blocked in this environment.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-scc-ac-paras-62-63
22 May 1994 · p.14 · pars. 46-51 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I must find that she has been discriminated against on the basis of her religion and her age pursuant to s. 15(1). In these circumstances, upon being given a blood transfusion, her right to the security of her person pursuant to s. 7 was infringed.”
Extracts printed in the article from the decision of Judge Main. The sections cited are sections 7 and 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He also said he refused to make any order that would put the child through the ordeal of a forced transfusion, described her as ‘courageous’ with ‘wisdom and maturity well beyond her years’, and dismissed the application.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. Reported as Re L.D.K. (1985), 48 R.F.L. (2d) 164 (Ont. Prov. Ct. (Fam. Div.)). The law report itself was not opened; the citation is confirmed from the Supreme Court of Canada.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-kosack-judgment
A seventeen-year-old in Chicago, named in the magazine and anonymised by the Illinois courts as E.G., is recorded as having survived. The case reached the Illinois Supreme Court, and its decision is still cited in the law on mature minors. We follow the court’s identifier here, because the point does not need her name.
The article records that after the Chicago trial court found seventeen-year-old E.G. to be a mature minor it nonetheless authorised transfusion, and that ‘the transfusion was forcibly given to Ernestine in spite of her vigorous protests’. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
22 May 1994 · p.15 · par. 59 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“The court found that Ernestine was a mature 17-year-old, able to make informed medical decisions; yet, amazingly, the court granted an order allowing blood transfusions. At the hospital two doctors were standing by, transfusion equipment set up, and as soon as the court’s decision came in, the transfusion was forcibly given to Ernestine in spite of her vigorous protests.”
The article’s account of the trial-court stage of the Chicago proceedings reported as In re E.G. It names Dr Stanley Yachnin, Dr Ner Littner and the hospital’s attorney Jane McAtee as witnesses, all three of whom appear in the reported judgments.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. The reported judgments record that E.G. received several transfusions over a period of weeks under a guardianship order, not a single forced transfusion.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-gregory-forced-transfusion
22 May 1994 · p.15 · par. 63 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Ernestine had no further transfusions, and she did not die from her leukemia. Ernestine stood firm and put God first, like the other young people mentioned previously. Each one received “power beyond what is normal.””
The closing sentences of the article, and the only statement in the issue about what happened to E.G. after the litigation.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · pp.11-12 · pars. 28-29 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“This guardianship terminated when Crystal was discharged from the hospital. Crystal never needed blood, and none was ever transfused, but it is shocking to see how the court treated Crystal.”
The order giving the hospital temporary custody was made on 22 June 1989 and allowed transfusion only if ‘necessary to protect and save her life’. The article adds that Crystal afterwards graduated from high school with honours and became a full-time minister. The page 12 marker falls inside the preceding sentence.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · p.7 · pars. 50-54 (box on page 7, ‘Bloodless Heart Transplant’) · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“On October 29, he performed the heart transplant on Chandra without blood. A month later Chandra was reported doing well.”
A box records that three-year-old the three-year-old in Ohio of Cleveland, Ohio, weighing 19 pounds, received a heart transplant without transfusion from Dr Charles Fraser on 29 October 1993, and quotes The Flint Journal of 1 December 1993 for the surgeon’s remarks about bloodless surgery. She is the only one of the six young people named in the issue who did not make the decision herself.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. appeared as amicus curiae in the Illinois Supreme Court in In re E.G., represented by Donald T. Ridley of Brooklyn; the organisation was therefore a participant in the litigation it later described to its readers. Source: Illinois Supreme Court, 18 November 1989
18 November 1989 · pp.133 Ill. 2d 98 · Ryan J · Illinois Supreme Court
“If the evidence is clear and convincing that the minor is mature enough to appreciate the consequences of her actions, and that the minor is mature enough to exercise the judgment of an adult, then the mature minor doctrine affords her the common law right to consent to or refuse medical treatment.”
The passage the 22 May 1994 Awake! quotes, confirmed against the reported text. Opinion filed 18 November 1989; rehearing denied 29 January 1990; Ward and Clark JJ dissenting. The head matter records that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. appeared as amicus curiae, by Donald T. Ridley of Brooklyn, New York.
Provenance and verification note for Illinois Supreme Court, In re E.G., a Minor (The People of the State of Illinois, Appellant, v. E.G., a Minor, Appellee), 133 Ill. 2d 98 (1989), No. 66089
Confidence note. The full reported opinion was downloaded from the Caselaw Access Project and read; the quoted sentence, the parties, the date and the amicus entry were confirmed. Justia and CourtListener both refuse automated requests in this environment.
Scan provenance. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static distribution of the official Illinois Reports text.
Notes. The Court decided the case on common-law grounds and expressly declined to decide the First Amendment question on which the Appellate Court had relied.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-ilsc-1989-eg-standard
A seventeen-year-old in New York City is recorded as never having been transfused: “Crystal never needed blood, and none was ever transfused.” Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
At a hearing convened at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center on 16 June 1989, a physician testified that if seventeen-year-old the New York seventeen-year-old resisted transfusion he would tie her to the bed with wrist and leg restraints; the article also records that the trial judge would not let her give evidence on the record, though after visiting her he called her ‘obviously very intelligent’ and ‘capable of expressing herself fully’. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
22 May 1994 · p.11 · par. 24 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“He further stated that if Crystal tried to resist the transfusions, he would tie her to the bed with wrist and leg restraints to accomplish the procedure. Crystal told the doctors that she would “scream and holler” if they attempted to transfuse her and that as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she viewed any forcible administration of blood to be as repulsive as rape.”
Evidence at a hearing convened at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, on the morning of 16 June 1989, after the hospital applied to the Supreme Court of the State of New York for authority to transfuse the New York seventeen-year-old, 17, who had inflammatory bowel disease.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · p.11 · pars. 25-26 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Despite her attorney’s repeated requests at the hearing, Crystal was denied the opportunity to speak for herself before the court to demonstrate her decision-making ability. … After the visit the trial judge said that Crystal was “obviously very intelligent” and “very articulate” and explained that Crystal “certainly was sound in mind” and “capable of expressing herself fully.””
The article states that the judge visited Crystal in her room for about twenty minutes but would not let her give evidence on the record, and characterises this as a denial of due process, bodily self-determination, privacy and religious freedom.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
The New York court gave the hospital temporary custody of the New York seventeen-year-old on 22 June 1989 for transfusion only if necessary to save her life; the article records that ‘Crystal never needed blood, and none was ever transfused’, and that one doctor had predicted she would be dead on 16 June. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The article draws the lesson explicitly: ‘When doctors wanting court orders to give blood declare blatantly that if the judge doesn’t comply immediately, the patient will die, let them remember the case of the New York seventeen-year-old.’ This is the organisation’s strongest argument in the issue and should be quoted.
22 May 1994 · pp.11-12 · pars. 28-29 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“This guardianship terminated when Crystal was discharged from the hospital. Crystal never needed blood, and none was ever transfused, but it is shocking to see how the court treated Crystal.”
The order giving the hospital temporary custody was made on 22 June 1989 and allowed transfusion only if ‘necessary to protect and save her life’. The article adds that Crystal afterwards graduated from high school with honours and became a full-time minister. The page 12 marker falls inside the preceding sentence.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
22 May 1994 · p.11 · par. 24 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“He further stated that if Crystal tried to resist the transfusions, he would tie her to the bed with wrist and leg restraints to accomplish the procedure. Crystal told the doctors that she would “scream and holler” if they attempted to transfuse her and that as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she viewed any forcible administration of blood to be as repulsive as rape.”
Evidence at a hearing convened at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, on the morning of 16 June 1989, after the hospital applied to the Supreme Court of the State of New York for authority to transfuse the New York seventeen-year-old, 17, who had inflammatory bowel disease.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
A boxed item in the first article adds a sixth case: a three-year-old girl in Ohio, who received a bloodless heart transplant in October 1993 and was “reported doing well” a month later. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
Where the magazine and the court record differ
One of the six accounts can be compared directly with a published judgment, because the case was decided by the Illinois Supreme Court and the decision is reported. The two accounts do not agree in every particular. We set the difference out rather than resolve it: the judgment is the more formal record, the magazine is the organisation’s own account, and a reader can weigh them.
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The magazine’s description of the appellate decision as ‘a two-to-one decision’ is accurate, and it quotes the Illinois Supreme Court’s mature-minor standard word for word.
18 November 1989 · pp.133 Ill. 2d 98 · Ryan J · Illinois Supreme Court
“On April 8, 1987, further hearings were held on this matter. E.G., having received several blood transfusions, was strong enough to take the stand.”
The reported facts: E.G. was diagnosed in February 1987 with acute nonlymphatic leukaemia; a temporary guardian with power to consent to transfusions was appointed on 25 February 1987; the trial court’s final ruling came on 18 May 1987; E.G. turned 18 on 25 November 1987. The Court also records her evidence that she asked to be sedated before the transfusions and said ‘[I]t seems as if everything that I wanted or believe in was just being disregarded.’ The Appellate Court reports the same events as ‘Appellant began receiving transfusions pursuant to this ruling.’
Notes. The reported facts describe a course of transfusions over roughly six weeks under a guardianship order; the Awake! account describes a single transfusion given ‘in spite of her vigorous protests’.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-ilsc-1989-eg-transfusions
23 September 1987 · pp.161 Ill. App. 3d 765 · White J (Freeman J concurring; McNamara PJ dissenting) · Illinois Appellate Court
“The court found probable cause to believe that appellant was medically neglected and appointed the hospital official temporary custodian with power to consent to all medical treatment. Appellant began receiving transfusions pursuant to this ruling.”
The intermediate decision the Awake! article describes as ‘a two-to-one decision’ — accurately: Justice White wrote, Justice Freeman concurred and Presiding Justice McNamara dissented at length. The court ordered E.G. partially emancipated and granted her the right to accept or refuse transfusions, but affirmed the trial court’s finding that she had been medically neglected.
Provenance and verification note for Illinois Appellate Court, First District (3rd Division), In re E.G., a Minor, 161 Ill. App. 3d 765 (1987), Nos. 87—1791, 87—2065 cons.
Confidence note. The full reported opinion and head matter were downloaded from the Caselaw Access Project on 19 September 2026 and read; the composition of the court and the disposition were confirmed.
Scan provenance. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static distribution of the official Illinois Appellate Court Reports text.
Notes. The Illinois Supreme Court later affirmed in part and reversed in part, on common-law rather than constitutional grounds, and remanded for the neglect finding against the mother to be expunged.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-ilapp-1987-eg
18 November 1989 · pp.133 Ill. 2d 98 · Ryan J · Illinois Supreme Court
“If the evidence is clear and convincing that the minor is mature enough to appreciate the consequences of her actions, and that the minor is mature enough to exercise the judgment of an adult, then the mature minor doctrine affords her the common law right to consent to or refuse medical treatment.”
The passage the 22 May 1994 Awake! quotes, confirmed against the reported text. Opinion filed 18 November 1989; rehearing denied 29 January 1990; Ward and Clark JJ dissenting. The head matter records that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. appeared as amicus curiae, by Donald T. Ridley of Brooklyn, New York.
Provenance and verification note for Illinois Supreme Court, In re E.G., a Minor (The People of the State of Illinois, Appellant, v. E.G., a Minor, Appellee), 133 Ill. 2d 98 (1989), No. 66089
Confidence note. The full reported opinion was downloaded from the Caselaw Access Project and read; the quoted sentence, the parties, the date and the amicus entry were confirmed. Justia and CourtListener both refuse automated requests in this environment.
Scan provenance. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static distribution of the official Illinois Reports text.
Notes. The Court decided the case on common-law grounds and expressly declined to decide the First Amendment question on which the Appellate Court had relied.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-ilsc-1989-eg-standard
22 May 1994 · p.15 · par. 59 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“The court found that Ernestine was a mature 17-year-old, able to make informed medical decisions; yet, amazingly, the court granted an order allowing blood transfusions. At the hospital two doctors were standing by, transfusion equipment set up, and as soon as the court’s decision came in, the transfusion was forcibly given to Ernestine in spite of her vigorous protests.”
The article’s account of the trial-court stage of the Chicago proceedings reported as In re E.G. It names Dr Stanley Yachnin, Dr Ner Littner and the hospital’s attorney Jane McAtee as witnesses, all three of whom appear in the reported judgments.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. The reported judgments record that E.G. received several transfusions over a period of weeks under a guardianship order, not a single forced transfusion.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-gregory-forced-transfusion
Alongside the personal accounts the issue ran boxes setting out the dangers of transfusion. Their construction is worth noting, because this site holds itself to a standard of sourcing and it is fair to apply the same standard here.
A box on page 13 gathers eight quotations on transfusion risk, three of them attributed to a named doctor and none of them carrying a volume, issue or page number; the figure it attributes to the New England Journal of Medicine of 14 December 1989 — that one unit of blood may carry enough virus to cause up to 1.75 million infections — corresponds arithmetically to the mean plasma titre of 3,500 tissue-culture-infective doses per millilitre reported in that issue for patients with AIDS, multiplied by the volume of a unit; a tissue-culture-infective dose is a laboratory measure of infection of cells in culture, and neither paper in that issue discusses transfusion or numbers of people infected. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: The New England Journal of Medicine, 14 December 1989Source: The American Journal of Surgery, September 1986
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The box also quotes Professor Charles H. Baron of Boston College Law School that ‘All of American society has benefited… patients in general, are today less likely to be given unnecessary blood transfusions because of the work of the Witnesses’ Hospital Liaison Committees’. This page does not assess whether that claim about blood conservation is correct; no source for it was opened.
22 May 1994 · p.13 · pars. 64-73 (box on page 13, ‘Dangers of Blood Transfusion’) · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“The New England Journal of Medicine, issue of December 14, 1989, reported that a single unit of blood may carry enough AIDS virus to cause up to 1.75 million infections!”
A box set between the Lisa Kosack and E.G. accounts gathers eight short quotations on transfusion risk, from the New England Journal of Medicine, the book Autologous and Directed Blood Programs (1987), Dr Charles Huggins (‘It is the most dangerous substance we use in medicine’), Surgery Annual (‘Clearly, the safest transfusion is the one not given’), Dr John S. Spratt in The American Journal of Surgery of September 1986, Emergency Medicine, Pathologist, and Professor Charles H. Baron of Boston College Law School.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. The box gives no volume, issue or page number for any of the eight quotations. Three of them name a person (Dr Charles Huggins, Dr John S. Spratt and Dr Charles H. Baron); the other five are attributed only to a journal or a book title.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-dangers-of-transfusion-box
14 December 1989 · pp.321(24):1621-1625 · Ho DD, Moudgil T, Alam M · Massachusetts Medical Society
“The mean titers in plasma were 30, 3500, and 3200 tissue-culture-infective doses (TCID) per milliliter for patients with asymptomatic infection, the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and the AIDS-related complex, respectively.”
The 22 May 1994 Awake! box on page 13 attributes to ‘The New England Journal of Medicine, issue of December 14, 1989’ the statement that ‘a single unit of blood may carry enough AIDS virus to cause up to 1.75 million infections’. That issue (vol. 321 no. 24) contains two papers reporting HIV titres in blood: this one and Coombs RW et al., ‘Plasma viremia in human immunodeficiency virus infection’, 321(24):1626-1631 (confirmed on PubMed, PMID 2511447). A tissue-culture-infective dose is a laboratory measure of how much virus is needed to infect cells in culture; neither paper discusses transfusion, units of blood, or the number of people who might be infected.
Provenance and verification note for The New England Journal of Medicine, Quantitation of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in the blood of infected persons
Confidence note. The abstract and bibliographic record were retrieved through the NCBI E-utilities service on 19 September 2026 and read, and retrieved again independently by the auditor; the PubMed web page itself returns HTTP 203 and a cookie wall to automated clients and could not be opened directly. the quoted sentence is from the published abstract. The full text behind the paywall was not opened, and the Awake! box gives no author or page, so the box’s figure could not be traced to a specific sentence in either paper.
Notes. The figure in the Awake! box corresponds arithmetically to this paper: 3,500 tissue-culture-infective doses per millilitre multiplied by the roughly 500 millilitres in a unit of whole blood gives 1,750,000. That correspondence is an inference drawn here, not something either paper states; and the 3,500 figure is the mean plasma titre reported for patients who had AIDS, not a figure for donated blood.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-nejm-1989-ho
September 1986 · pp.152(3):337 · Spratt JS · Elsevier
“Blood transfusions and surgery for cancer”
The 22 May 1994 Awake! box on page 13 attributes to ‘Dr. John S. Spratt’ in ‘The American Journal of Surgery, issue of September 1986’ the sentence ‘The cancer surgeon may need to become a bloodless surgeon.’ An article by that author, with that title, in that journal and month does exist.
Provenance and verification note for The American Journal of Surgery, Blood transfusions and surgery for cancer
Confidence note. The bibliographic record was confirmed on 19 September 2026 through the NCBI E-utilities service: Spratt JS, ‘Blood transfusions and surgery for cancer’, Am J Surg 1986 Sep;152(3):337. The PubMed web page itself returns HTTP 203 and a cookie wall to automated clients, so it could not be opened directly. The text of the article was not opened, so the quoted sentence itself is not verified — only the citation.
Notes. The seven other quotations in the same box give no volume or page. Two of them name a person (Dr Charles Huggins and Dr Charles H. Baron) and five are attributed only to a journal or book title; none was traced.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-spratt-1986
The cover carries the title “Youths Who Put God First” over a montage of photographs of young people, with three figures in the foreground. Commentators frequently state that the cover shows twenty-six children and that all of them died refusing blood. We looked for support for that in the issue itself and did not find it: the contents page and the two articles do not identify the people pictured, do not give a count, and report outcomes only for the six people named above, half of whom the issue says were alive. We viewed a low-resolution scan of the cover hosted by a discovery site and could not reliably count the photographs from it. Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
22 May 1994 · p.2 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“In former times thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it, only today the drama is played out in hospitals and courtrooms, with blood transfusions the issue.”
The contents page introduces the series ‘Youths Who Put God First’ on pages 3–15. It does not name or count the young people pictured on the cover.
Notes. The cover (a montage of photographs of young people beneath the title) is not reproduced on the Online Library; a low-resolution scan hosted by a discovery site was viewed but the number of people pictured could not be reliably counted from it.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g-1994-0522-contents
22 May 1994 · pp.3-8 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I just could not live with myself if I am given blood.”
The article, narrated by his father, describes Adrian Yeatts of Newfoundland, Canada, aged 14, diagnosed with a fast-growing abdominal lymphoma in March 1993 and subsequently leukaemia. Newfoundland’s Supreme Court (Justice Robert Wells) held in July 1993 that he was a mature minor whose refusal of blood would be respected. He was baptised in a hospital physiotherapy tank on 12 September 1993 and the article records that he died the next day. A boxed item describes a bloodless heart transplant for three-year-old the three-year-old in Ohio of Ohio in October 1993, reported a month later as doing well. The article also records the medical advice as the family reported it: Dr Jardine 'explained that a very aggressive chemotherapy program with blood transfusions was the only way Adrian could possibly live'; 'chemotherapy was started, without the transfusions'; and it closes by saying that he rejected transfusions 'that could conceivably have extended his present life'.
22 May 1994 · pp.9-15 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“After a long, difficult night, at 6:30 a.m., September 22, 1993, Lenae fell asleep in death in the arms of her mother.”
The article profiles four young people: Lenae Martinez, 12, Fresno, California, leukaemia — recorded as having died on 22 September 1993; the New York seventeen-year-old, 17, New York City, inflammatory bowel disease — ‘Crystal never needed blood, and none was ever transfused’; Lisa Kosack, 12, Toronto, acute myeloid leukaemia — ‘She died peacefully at home, in the loving arms of her mother and father’; E.G., 17, Chicago, leukaemia — ‘Ernestine had no further transfusions, and she did not die from her leukemia.’ E.G. (par. 59) was transfused once under a trial-court order 'in spite of her vigorous protests'; the Illinois Appellate Court and the Illinois Supreme Court then upheld her right to refuse (pars. 60-61), and the article records that she 'had no further transfusions, and she did not die from her leukemia' (par. 63).
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have ‘Power Beyond What Is Normal’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; names, ages, places and outcome sentences confirmed from the article text.
Notes. Together with the first article, the issue names six young people: three recorded as having died and three recorded as alive at the time of writing.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g-1994-0522-power-beyond-normal
The cover carries the masthead, the date line ‘May 22, 1994’ and, in a panel across the lower third, the title ‘Youths Who Put God First’; three young people are photographed in colour in the foreground, standing before a wall of small portrait photographs of young people printed in a pale tint, some of them overlapping, cut off at the page edge or hidden behind the masthead and the foreground figures. Source: JWfacts.com, 19 September 2026
The cover carries the Awake! masthead with the date line ‘May 22, 1994’ and, in a bordered blue panel across the lower third, the title ‘Youths Who Put God First’ in yellow capitals. In front of a wall of small portrait photographs of young people, overlapping and printed in a pale washed-out tint, stand three young people photographed in full colour: a girl on the left, a boy in the centre and a girl on the right, all smiling at the camera. The background photographs are partly hidden by the masthead at the top and by the three foreground figures at the bottom, and some are cut off by the edge of the page.
No online copy located.
Provenance and verification note for JWfacts.com, Scan of the cover of Awake!, 22 May 1994, on the page ‘Blood Transfusions’
Confidence note. The image was downloaded and viewed on 19 September 2026 and enlarged for examination; the description is of what can be seen in that scan. It is a low-resolution third-party scan with no stated provenance, so it is not treated as a verified reproduction of the printed cover. No reliable count of the background photographs can be made from it: the rows overlap, are obscured and are cropped at the page edge. At least twenty background portraits are at least partly visible.
Notes. Recorded for location and description only. The site should describe the cover in words and, if it points anywhere at all, link rather than rehost.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-cover-scan-jwfacts
19 September 2026 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“cvr_placeholder.jpg”
The organisation publishes no image of this issue’s cover. The JW.org page for the 22 May 1994 Awake! renders a generic cover placeholder in place of a cover image; the Watchtower Online Library carries the text of the twelve articles with no illustrations, though it retains the printed issue’s picture and picture-credit lines for pages 16, 19, 21, 23, 26, 31 and 32; and the official publication file offered by the JW.org pub-media service (g_E_19940522.jwpub) contains a text-only database whose multimedia table is empty. No PDF or EPUB edition is offered for this issue.
Provenance and verification note for JW.org / Watchtower Online Library, Awake!, 22 May 1994 — the official digital editions
Confidence note. The JW.org magazine page, the Watchtower Online Library issue listing and article pages, the pub-media response for pub=g and issue=19940522, and the publication database inside the official .jwpub file were each opened on 19 September 2026. The quoted string is the file name of the placeholder image served on the JW.org page.
22 May 1994 · pp.1-32 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“He ‘Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth’ … Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal””
The issue runs to 32 pages and contains twelve items. The official publication file records the page range of each: Page Two (2); ‘He “Remembered His Creator in the Days of His Youth”’ (3-8); ‘Youths Who Have “Power Beyond What Is Normal”’ (9-15); ‘Alligators—Rare, White, and Blue-Eyed!’ (16-17); ‘What If I Fall For an Unbeliever?’ (18-20); ‘Is the Bible Irrelevant?’ (21); ‘Your Chop Your Signature’ (22-24); ‘Put Humor Into Your Life’ (25-27); ‘Watching the World’ (28-29); ‘From Our Readers’ (30); ‘Contaminated Blood Given to Hemophiliacs’ (31); ‘The “Godly Fear” District Convention Is At Hand’ (32). The two blood articles occupy pages 3-15, thirteen of the issue's thirty-two pages. Neither of them is headed ‘Youths Who Put God First’: that is the cover title. Inside the issue the phrase occurs only in the page 2 contents item, which reads ‘Youths Who Put God First 3-15’ (Watchtower Online Library document 101994360, par. 2; src-g-1994-0522-contents), and in the magazine’s own 1994 annual index.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Awake!, 22 May 1994 (complete issue; official publication file g_E_19940522.jwpub)
Confidence note. The issue listing was opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026, and the official publication file g_E_19940522.jwpub (linked from the JW.org pub-media service at https://cfp2.jw-cdn.org/a/044135e/2/o/g_E_19940522.jwpub) was downloaded and its publication database read directly; the twelve documents and their first and last page numbers are taken from that file. Both steps were repeated independently by the auditor on 19 September 2026: the twelve rows of the Document table and their FirstPageNumber and LastPageNumber values match, and the pub-media service offers this issue in JWPUB format only, with an empty pubImage entry.
Notes. The official publication file contains no multimedia records at all (the Multimedia, DocumentMultimedia and ExtractMultimedia tables are empty and the manifest lists no images), so the authorised digital edition of this issue carries no photographs or illustrations. The printed issue did carry pictures: the Watchtower Online Library text retains picture and picture-credit lines for pages 16, 19, 21, 23, 26, 31 and 32. There is no such line in either of the two blood articles.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-issue-contents-map
The widely repeated statement that the cover shows twenty-six children who all died refusing blood cannot be established: the figure appears nowhere in the issue, the one site opened for this record gives no source, the only cover image on one of those sites is a cropped derivative rather than a scan, and the background portraits in the one scan located cannot be counted reliably because they overlap and are partly obscured. Source: AvoidJW.org, 20 March 2026 (unverified)Source: JWfacts.com, 19 September 2026Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
A representative statement of the widely repeated claim that the cover pictures twenty-six children who all died refusing blood. The page gives no source for the figure and none for the assertion that those pictured died.
Provenance and verification note for AvoidJW.org, Jehovah’s Witnesses Change Blood Doctrine — What About the Losses?
Confidence note. The page and its banner image were opened on 19 September 2026, and again independently by the auditor; the page carries the line ‘Published: March 20th, 2026’ and the phrase quoted above appears on it verbatim. The figure of twenty-six appears nowhere in the magazine, is not sourced on this page, and could not be confirmed from the only cover scan located; the image on the page is a derivative graphic and is not evidence of a count.
Scan provenance. Banner image hosted by AvoidJW.org. On inspection it is not a scan of the cover but a cropped, re-tinted derivative showing only the three foreground figures and a fragment of the background, with the masthead, the date line and the title panel removed. The copy consulted is hosted by a third party and its lawfulness is not established, so no link to it is published here.
Notes. Recorded so that the site can explain, and decline to repeat, the claim — not as evidence for it.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-cover-claim-avoidjw
The cover carries the Awake! masthead with the date line ‘May 22, 1994’ and, in a bordered blue panel across the lower third, the title ‘Youths Who Put God First’ in yellow capitals. In front of a wall of small portrait photographs of young people, overlapping and printed in a pale washed-out tint, stand three young people photographed in full colour: a girl on the left, a boy in the centre and a girl on the right, all smiling at the camera. The background photographs are partly hidden by the masthead at the top and by the three foreground figures at the bottom, and some are cut off by the edge of the page.
No online copy located.
Provenance and verification note for JWfacts.com, Scan of the cover of Awake!, 22 May 1994, on the page ‘Blood Transfusions’
Confidence note. The image was downloaded and viewed on 19 September 2026 and enlarged for examination; the description is of what can be seen in that scan. It is a low-resolution third-party scan with no stated provenance, so it is not treated as a verified reproduction of the printed cover. No reliable count of the background photographs can be made from it: the rows overlap, are obscured and are cropped at the page edge. At least twenty background portraits are at least partly visible.
Notes. Recorded for location and description only. The site should describe the cover in words and, if it points anywhere at all, link rather than rehost.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-cover-scan-jwfacts
22 May 1994 · p.2 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“In former times thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it, only today the drama is played out in hospitals and courtrooms, with blood transfusions the issue.”
The contents page introduces the series ‘Youths Who Put God First’ on pages 3–15. It does not name or count the young people pictured on the cover.
Notes. The cover (a montage of photographs of young people beneath the title) is not reproduced on the Online Library; a low-resolution scan hosted by a discovery site was viewed but the number of people pictured could not be reliably counted from it.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g-1994-0522-contents
This matters for the same reason everything on this site matters. The documented record is serious enough: the organisation’s own magazine described children as dying over blood and presented that as putting God first. Overstating it would be inaccurate, and inaccuracy costs the reader’s trust.
What happened next
The issue was not a one-off, and it has not been withdrawn.
The organisation published readers’ responses to the series in Awake! of 22 October and 8 December 1994, including a seventeen-year-old in Germany who wrote that ‘Dying doesn’t scare me, but the thought of disregarding Jehovah’s laws does’ and an eighteen-year-old in Nigeria who ‘could not stop crying when I came to see that these faithful children died’. Source: Awake!, 8 December 1994Source: Awake!, 22 October 1994
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The letters were selected and printed by the magazine, and are the organisation’s own record of how it intended and understood the series to be read.
8 December 1994 · p.30 · pars. 2-15 (‘Faithful Youths’) · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I am 18 years old. I was thrilled and shaken when I read the articles yesterday. I could not stop crying when I came to see that these faithful children died. Their faith has made me ask myself whether I could, under such conditions, keep my integrity.”
Seven reader letters printed under the heading ‘Faithful Youths’, from the United States, Germany (two), Austria, Nigeria, Italy and Japan. Another, from a 17-year-old in Germany, reads: ‘I am 17 years old and have been afraid of finding myself in such a situation one day. Dying doesn’t scare me, but the thought of disregarding Jehovah’s laws does. It would be awful to give in under pressure. The article gave me much strength.’ A third says the writer afterwards read the booklet How Can Blood Save Your Life? and ‘now know[s] how to behave should I ever be in a similar situation’.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, From Our Readers
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. These are letters the organisation itself selected and published, and are evidence of how the series was received and of the use to which it was put.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-readers-1994-1208
22 October 1994 · p.30 · par. 13 (letter under the running head ‘Youths Resist Blood Transfusions’); signature at par. 14 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I am 12 years old, and I have just read the series “Youths Who Put God First.” (May 22, 1994) I was very impressed by the courage that these young Christian brothers and sisters showed, facing death with such confidence in Jehovah and in the resurrection. Their courage and faith in Jehovah made me weep with joy.”
The first published reader response to the series, signed ‘B. C. R., Spain’, printed under the heading ‘Youths Resist Blood Transfusions’ five months after the issue.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, From Our Readers
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The 1995 article frames the outcome as a gain for everyone, quoting a Telegraph Journal editorial that the decision was ‘a victory not just for Jehovah’s Witnesses, but for us all’ and the Canadian Medical Association Journal on the guidelines it set.
22 January 1995 · pp.11-15 · pars. 3-4, 39-40 · Awake! correspondent in Canada · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Joshua died October 4, 1994.”
Eight months after the ‘Youths Who Put God First’ issue, Awake! carried a five-page account of Joshua Walker, 15, of New Brunswick, who had acute myeloid leukaemia. It quotes Chief Justice W. L. Hoyt of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal (‘The evidence here is overwhelming that Joshua is sufficiently mature’), a Telegraph Journal editorial calling the decision ‘a victory not just for Jehovah’s Witnesses, but for us all’, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The article’s final line, standing on its own, records his death.
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Joshua’s Faith—A Victory for Children’s Rights
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
Notes. The appeal is reported as Region 2 Hospital Corp. v. Walker (1994), 150 N.B.R. (2d) 366 (C.A.), a citation confirmed from the Supreme Court of Canada in A.C. v. Manitoba.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-walker-1995
1 July 1994 · pp.29-31 · pars. 1-5 · As told by friends of Brunella Inconditi · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“Two days before she expected to symbolize her dedication by water baptism, Brunella learned that she had leukemia.”
Six weeks after the Awake! series, The Watchtower carried a comparable account of Brunella Inconditi of Montreal, who learned she had leukaemia in July 1990 at the age of 15. The current Watch Tower index tags the article ‘(blood case)’.
Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, “I Have Observed the Faith”
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026 and the wording, page marker and paragraph confirmed against the article text.
The organisation’s current cumulative index, covering 1986 to 2026, lists these young people by name under Canada, each tagged ‘(blood case)’, together with ‘Inconditi, Brunella (blood case): w94 7/1 29-31’ and ‘Cadoreth, April: kr 162-164’. The index also supplies the page range of each account.
Provenance and verification note for Watch Tower Publications Index 1986-2026, Canada (subheading ‘persons’)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026, the day after the announced change to the blood position; the entries and page ranges were read from the index page itself.
Notes. The index is the organisation’s own finding aid. Its continued listing of these accounts as ‘blood case’ entries is the clearest available evidence that the 1994 and 1995 articles remain part of the published corpus.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-wt-index-1986-2026-canada
The organisation’s current cumulative index, the Watch Tower Publications Index 1986-2026, still lists Adrian Yeatts, Lisa Kosack, Joshua Walker and Brunella Inconditi by name, each tagged ‘(blood case)’, with the page range of the article about them; the 1994 and 1995 articles remain published on the Watchtower Online Library. Source: Watch Tower Publications Index 1986-2026, 2026Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994Source: Awake!, 22 May 1994
The organisation’s current cumulative index, covering 1986 to 2026, lists these young people by name under Canada, each tagged ‘(blood case)’, together with ‘Inconditi, Brunella (blood case): w94 7/1 29-31’ and ‘Cadoreth, April: kr 162-164’. The index also supplies the page range of each account.
Provenance and verification note for Watch Tower Publications Index 1986-2026, Canada (subheading ‘persons’)
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026, the day after the announced change to the blood position; the entries and page ranges were read from the index page itself.
Notes. The index is the organisation’s own finding aid. Its continued listing of these accounts as ‘blood case’ entries is the clearest available evidence that the 1994 and 1995 articles remain part of the published corpus.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g94d-wt-index-1986-2026-canada
22 May 1994 · pp.3-8 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I just could not live with myself if I am given blood.”
The article, narrated by his father, describes Adrian Yeatts of Newfoundland, Canada, aged 14, diagnosed with a fast-growing abdominal lymphoma in March 1993 and subsequently leukaemia. Newfoundland’s Supreme Court (Justice Robert Wells) held in July 1993 that he was a mature minor whose refusal of blood would be respected. He was baptised in a hospital physiotherapy tank on 12 September 1993 and the article records that he died the next day. A boxed item describes a bloodless heart transplant for three-year-old the three-year-old in Ohio of Ohio in October 1993, reported a month later as doing well. The article also records the medical advice as the family reported it: Dr Jardine 'explained that a very aggressive chemotherapy program with blood transfusions was the only way Adrian could possibly live'; 'chemotherapy was started, without the transfusions'; and it closes by saying that he rejected transfusions 'that could conceivably have extended his present life'.
22 May 1994 · pp.9-15 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“After a long, difficult night, at 6:30 a.m., September 22, 1993, Lenae fell asleep in death in the arms of her mother.”
The article profiles four young people: Lenae Martinez, 12, Fresno, California, leukaemia — recorded as having died on 22 September 1993; the New York seventeen-year-old, 17, New York City, inflammatory bowel disease — ‘Crystal never needed blood, and none was ever transfused’; Lisa Kosack, 12, Toronto, acute myeloid leukaemia — ‘She died peacefully at home, in the loving arms of her mother and father’; E.G., 17, Chicago, leukaemia — ‘Ernestine had no further transfusions, and she did not die from her leukemia.’ E.G. (par. 59) was transfused once under a trial-court order 'in spite of her vigorous protests'; the Illinois Appellate Court and the Illinois Supreme Court then upheld her right to refuse (pars. 60-61), and the article records that she 'had no further transfusions, and she did not die from her leukemia' (par. 63).
Provenance and verification note for Awake!, Youths Who Have ‘Power Beyond What Is Normal’
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; names, ages, places and outcome sentences confirmed from the article text.
Notes. Together with the first article, the issue names six young people: three recorded as having died and three recorded as alive at the time of writing.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-g-1994-0522-power-beyond-normal
The Governing Body update of 18 September 2026 that made the four primary blood components a personal decision makes no reference to anyone who died under the previous position and none to the 1994 or 1995 articles; it refers to the past only to describe the organisation’s own earlier application of the principle and its 2026 Governing Body Update #2; its official English caption file contains no occurrence of ‘1994’, ‘young’ or ‘minor’. Source: JW Broadcasting, 18 September 2026Source: JW.org (Questions From Readers), 18 September 2026
The organisation’s position or later explanation: The accompanying article frames the change as following ‘further prayerful consideration’ and states that the Governing Body ‘is not authorized to “go beyond the things that are written”’.
18 September 2026 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“After further prayerful consideration, the Governing Body has decided that this same principle applies to the four primary components of whole blood —that’s red cells, white cells, plasma, and platelets— that are derived from another person’s blood. Therefore, each Christian must make his own personal decision about the use of these four primary components in all medical and surgical care.”
The update announcing the change to the position on blood components. Read in full, the caption file contains no reference to anyone who died under the previous position, no reference to the 1994 or 1995 articles, and no occurrence of ‘1994’, ‘young’ or ‘minor’. The single occurrence of ‘children’ is in the phrase ‘to take the lives of unborn children’; the single occurrence of ‘previous’ concerns a convention announcement.
Provenance and verification note for JW Broadcasting, 2026 Governing Body Update #6 (official English subtitle file)
Confidence note. The official caption file was downloaded again on 19 September 2026 by the auditor, stripped of timestamps and read in full (about 10,000 characters); the quotation above is the verbatim caption wording. The wording previously recorded here (‘Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t accept transfusions of whole blood…’) appears neither in this caption file nor on the JW.org news page, and was removed in the independent audit.
Scan provenance. Official English closed-caption file served by the organisation’s own content delivery network (cfp2.jw-cdn.org) for media item docid-1112024060.
18 September 2026 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“After further prayerful consideration, the Governing Body has decided that this same principle applies to the four primary components of whole blood—red cells, white cells, plasma, and platelets—that are derived from another person’s blood. Therefore, each Christian must make his own personal decision about the use of these four primary components in all medical and surgical care.”
The article also states that Witnesses ‘do not accept transfusions of whole blood, nor do we donate blood that would be used as a whole blood transfusion to another person’, that each Christian must decide whether to donate blood ‘for the clearly expressed purpose of providing components or fractions’, and that it reflects what was shared in the 2026 Governing Body Update #6 and will appear in a future issue of The Watchtower.
Notes. The article carries the note: ‘This article reflects what was shared in the 2026 Governing Body Update #6 and will appear in a future issue of The Watchtower.’ It also states the Governing Body ‘is not authorized to “go beyond the things that are written”’ (1 Corinthians 4:6).
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-jw-2026-0918-qfr-respect-life
As of 19 September 2026, JW.org’s FAQ on blood transfusions describes the statement that ‘many Witnesses, including children, die each year as a result of refusing blood transfusions’ as a myth, says such patients ‘usually fare as well as or better than those who do accept transfusions’, citing cardiac-surgery and blood-management literature in footnotes, and adds that ‘no one can say for certain that a patient will die because of refusing blood or will live because of accepting it’. Source: JW.org Frequently Asked Questions, 19 September 2026 The 1994 issue, by contrast, records three deaths among six named children and frames the deaths of youths as continuing. Both statements are the organisation’s. Readers can weigh them together.
Myth: Many Witnesses, including children, die each year as a result of refusing blood transfusions. Fact: This statement is totally unfounded. Surgeons regularly perform such complex procedures as heart operations, orthopedic surgery, and organ transplants without the use of blood transfusions. Patients, including children, who do not receive transfusions usually fare as well as or better than those who do accept transfusions. In any case, no one can say for certain that a patient will die because of refusing blood or will live because of accepting it.
In 1994 the organisation’s published position was the one in the 1990 brochure: Witnesses ‘do not accept transfusions of whole blood, red cells, white cells, platelets, or blood plasma’. Source: How Can Blood Save Your Life? (brochure), 1990 The articles say the young people refused ‘blood’ and ‘blood products’ without naming components. On 18 September 2026, red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma from another person became personal decisions. Source: JW.org (Questions From Readers), 18 September 2026
1990 · footnote to par. 12 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“Witnesses do not accept transfusions of whole blood, red cells, white cells, platelets, or blood plasma.”
The footnote continues by referring readers to The Watchtower of 1 June 1990, pages 30–31, for minor fractions such as immune globulin. The section describes non-blood volume expanders (saline, dextran, Haemaccel, lactated Ringer’s solution, hetastarch) as acceptable.
Provenance and verification note for How Can Blood Save Your Life? (brochure), Quality Alternatives to Transfusion
Confidence note. Text opened on JW.org on 19 September 2026 and the footnote wording confirmed. The 1990 publication year is the brochure’s own imprint date as catalogued by the Watchtower Online Library (publication code hb); the JW.org page does not display a year.
15 October 2000 · pp.30-31 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“Hence, we do not donate blood, nor do we store for transfusion our blood that should be ‘poured out.’ That practice conflicts with God’s law.”
The question asked was: ‘In the light of Bible commands about the proper use of blood, how do Jehovah’s Witnesses view medical procedures using one’s own blood?’ The article said that depositing one’s own blood weeks before surgery ‘directly contradicts’ Leviticus and Deuteronomy, while procedures in which the patient’s blood stays in a continuous circuit (haemodilution, cell salvage, heart-lung machines, dialysis) were left for each Christian to decide.
18 September 2026 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“After further prayerful consideration, the Governing Body has decided that this same principle applies to the four primary components of whole blood—red cells, white cells, plasma, and platelets—that are derived from another person’s blood. Therefore, each Christian must make his own personal decision about the use of these four primary components in all medical and surgical care.”
The article also states that Witnesses ‘do not accept transfusions of whole blood, nor do we donate blood that would be used as a whole blood transfusion to another person’, that each Christian must decide whether to donate blood ‘for the clearly expressed purpose of providing components or fractions’, and that it reflects what was shared in the 2026 Governing Body Update #6 and will appear in a future issue of The Watchtower.
Notes. The article carries the note: ‘This article reflects what was shared in the 2026 Governing Body Update #6 and will appear in a future issue of The Watchtower.’ It also states the Governing Body ‘is not authorized to “go beyond the things that are written”’ (1 Corinthians 4:6).
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID.src-jw-2026-0918-qfr-respect-life
We do not say that any of the young people named here would have lived under the 2026 rules. Their medical circumstances are not fully documented, and outcomes in serious illness are never guaranteed. What can be said is narrower and firmer: a category of treatment that was prohibited on pain of congregational consequence when they were ill is now, by the organisation’s own statement, a decision the congregation ‘will not get involved in’.
How to check this yourself
Nothing on this page asks you to take our word for anything. The issue is on the organisation’s own website, and these are the steps to read it for yourself, in full and in context.
Open the Watchtower Online Library at wol.jw.org. This is the organisation’s own library, not a copy held by anyone else. The link goes straight to the contents page of the 22 May 1994 Awake!
Read the contents page first. The sentence quoted at the top of this page is there, in the issue’s own introduction to itself.
Open the two feature articles, “They Remembered Their Creator” and “Youths Who Have ‘Power Beyond What Is Normal’”, pages 3 to 15. Every quotation on this page comes from one of them, and each citation below links to the exact article.
Compare it with the current article. The organisation’s statement of 18 September 2026 is also on its own site, and it is linked from every page in this section.
If a quotation here does not match what you read, tell us and we will correct it publicly. That is what the corrections process is for, and the corrections log is open.
Citing or sharing this page. The stable address is https://jwtruth.org/blood/youths-who-put-god-first/. Every claim on it has its own permanent link, and the full source list below prints with its citations visible.
Sources cited on this page
Show all 50 sources, in date order
Each opens a full record with links, provenance and a confidence note.
23 September 1987 · pp.161 Ill. App. 3d 765 · White J (Freeman J concurring; McNamara PJ dissenting) · Illinois Appellate Court
“The court found probable cause to believe that appellant was medically neglected and appointed the hospital official temporary custodian with power to consent to all medical treatment. Appellant began receiving transfusions pursuant to this ruling.”
18 November 1989 · pp.133 Ill. 2d 98 · Ryan J · Illinois Supreme Court
“If the evidence is clear and convincing that the minor is mature enough to appreciate the consequences of her actions, and that the minor is mature enough to exercise the judgment of an adult, then the mature minor doctrine affords her the common law right to consent to or refuse medical treatment.”
18 November 1989 · pp.133 Ill. 2d 98 · Ward J · Illinois Supreme Court
“The safeguarding of health and the preservation of life are obviously different conditions from one in which a minor will be held to have a common law right, as the majority puts it, to refuse medical treatment and sometimes in effect take his own life.”
14 December 1989 · pp.321(24):1621-1625 · Ho DD, Moudgil T, Alam M · Massachusetts Medical Society
“The mean titers in plasma were 30, 3500, and 3200 tissue-culture-infective doses (TCID) per milliliter for patients with asymptomatic infection, the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and the AIDS-related complex, respectively.”
22 May 1994 · p.2 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“In former times thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it, only today the drama is played out in hospitals and courtrooms, with blood transfusions the issue.”
22 May 1994 · p.4 · pars. 11-14 (Watchtower Online Library paragraph ids p11-p14) · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Dr. Jardine asked, “Do you realize that you could die if you don’t take a blood transfusion?” “Yes.” “And you’re willing to do that?” “If that’s what it takes.””
22 May 1994 · pp.4-5 · par. 16 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Mom, it’s not a good trade. To disobey God and extend my life for a few years now and then because of my disobedience to God lose out on a resurrection and living forever in his paradise earth—that’s just not smart!”
22 May 1994 · p.5 · par. 17 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“The biopsy was performed on March 18. It showed that Adrian had a large lymphoma tumor. A subsequent bone marrow biopsy confirmed the fear that he had developed leukemia.”
22 May 1994 · p.6 · par. 24 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I won’t agree to blood or let it be used; no way. I know I could die if no blood is used. But that is my decision. No one talked me into that. … The way I feel is that if I’m given any blood that will be like raping me, molesting my body. … Please respect me and my wishes.”
22 May 1994 · p.6 · pars. 26-27 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I was alert to the consideration whether his parents [had imposed] upon him their opposition to blood use in the medical treatment of him. … I was satisfied [that] he exercised a mind of his own in expressing his wish for medical treatment absent blood.”
22 May 1994 · pp.6-8 · pars. 29-37 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“For the following reasons, the applications of the Director of Child Welfare are dismissed; the child is not in need of protection; the use of blood or blood products for the purposes of blood transfusion or injection have not been demonstrated to be essential, and in the particular circumstances of this case, could be harmful.”
22 May 1994 · p.8 · par. 42 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“So the nurses kindly arranged for him to use one of the stainless steel tanks in the physiotherapy room. He was baptized there September 12; he died the next day, September 13.”
22 May 1994 · p.8 · par. 45 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“By rejecting blood transfusions that could conceivably have extended his present life, Adrian Yeatts showed himself to be one of the many young people who put God first.”
22 May 1994 · p.10 · pars. 12-17 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
““But blood transfusions will prolong your life. If you refuse blood, you will die in a few days.” “If I take blood,” Lenae asked, “how long will that prolong my life?” “About three to six months,” they answered.”
22 May 1994 · p.10 · par. 18 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“This committee, made up of doctors and other health-care professionals, along with a professor of ethics from Fresno State University, made the decision to allow Lenae to make her own decisions with regard to her medical treatment. They considered Lenae a mature minor. No court order was sought.”
22 May 1994 · p.10 · pars. 19-20 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“After a long, difficult night, at 6:30 a.m., September 22, 1993, Lenae fell asleep in death in the arms of her mother. … There were 482 who attended the memorial service, including doctors, nurses, and teachers, who had been impressed by Lenae’s faith and integrity.”
22 May 1994 · p.11 · par. 24 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“He further stated that if Crystal tried to resist the transfusions, he would tie her to the bed with wrist and leg restraints to accomplish the procedure. Crystal told the doctors that she would “scream and holler” if they attempted to transfuse her and that as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she viewed any forcible administration of blood to be as repulsive as rape.”
22 May 1994 · p.11 · pars. 25-26 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Despite her attorney’s repeated requests at the hearing, Crystal was denied the opportunity to speak for herself before the court to demonstrate her decision-making ability. … After the visit the trial judge said that Crystal was “obviously very intelligent” and “very articulate” and explained that Crystal “certainly was sound in mind” and “capable of expressing herself fully.””
22 May 1994 · pp.11-12 · pars. 28-29 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“This guardianship terminated when Crystal was discharged from the hospital. Crystal never needed blood, and none was ever transfused, but it is shocking to see how the court treated Crystal.”
22 May 1994 · p.12 · par. 32 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“At midnight a nurse came in and said: ‘I have to give you some blood.’ I cried out: ‘I can’t take blood because I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses! I hope you know that! I hope you know that!’ ‘Well, yes, I do,’ she said, and immediately pulled out my IV and shoved in the blood. I was crying and becoming hysterical.”
22 May 1994 · pp.13-14 · pars. 35-44 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
““Do you want to die?” “No, I don’t think anybody wants to die, but if I do die I’m not going to be scared, because I know that I have the hope of everlasting life in a paradise on earth.””
22 May 1994 · p.14 · pars. 46-51 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I must find that she has been discriminated against on the basis of her religion and her age pursuant to s. 15(1). In these circumstances, upon being given a blood transfusion, her right to the security of her person pursuant to s. 7 was infringed.”
22 May 1994 · p.14 · par. 52 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Lisa did, indeed, fight her disease with dignity and peace of mind. She died peacefully at home, in the loving arms of her mother and father. In so doing she joined the ranks of many other youthful Witnesses of Jehovah who put God first.”
22 May 1994 · p.15 · par. 59 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“The court found that Ernestine was a mature 17-year-old, able to make informed medical decisions; yet, amazingly, the court granted an order allowing blood transfusions. At the hospital two doctors were standing by, transfusion equipment set up, and as soon as the court’s decision came in, the transfusion was forcibly given to Ernestine in spite of her vigorous protests.”
22 May 1994 · p.15 · pars. 60-62 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“If the evidence is clear and convincing that the minor is mature enough to appreciate the consequences of her actions, and that the minor is mature enough to exercise the judgment of an adult, then the mature minor doctrine affords her the common law right to consent to or refuse medical treatment.”
22 May 1994 · p.15 · par. 63 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“Ernestine had no further transfusions, and she did not die from her leukemia. Ernestine stood firm and put God first, like the other young people mentioned previously. Each one received “power beyond what is normal.””
22 May 1994 · p.13 · pars. 64-73 (box on page 13, ‘Dangers of Blood Transfusion’) · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“The New England Journal of Medicine, issue of December 14, 1989, reported that a single unit of blood may carry enough AIDS virus to cause up to 1.75 million infections!”
22 May 1994 · p.31 · pars. 1-6 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“BLOOD has become a two-billion-dollar-a-year business. The pursuit of profits from it has resulted in a gigantic tragedy in France. HIV-contaminated blood caused the death of 250 hemophiliacs in AIDS-related illnesses, with hundreds more infected.”
22 October 1994 · p.30 · par. 13 (letter under the running head ‘Youths Resist Blood Transfusions’); signature at par. 14 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I am 12 years old, and I have just read the series “Youths Who Put God First.” (May 22, 1994) I was very impressed by the courage that these young Christian brothers and sisters showed, facing death with such confidence in Jehovah and in the resurrection. Their courage and faith in Jehovah made me weep with joy.”
8 December 1994 · p.30 · pars. 2-15 (‘Faithful Youths’) · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
“I am 18 years old. I was thrilled and shaken when I read the articles yesterday. I could not stop crying when I came to see that these faithful children died. Their faith has made me ask myself whether I could, under such conditions, keep my integrity.”
26 June 2009 · pp.[2009] 2 S.C.R. 181 at 221-222 · paras. 62-63 (and para. 128 per McLachlin CJ) · Abella J · Supreme Court of Canada
“In Re L.D.K. (1985), 48 R.F.L. (2d) 164 (Ont. Prov. Ct. (Fam. Div.)), for example, the patient was a 12-year-old girl suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia. … In Re A.Y. (1993), 111 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 91 (Nfld. S.C.), the court was faced with an application from the Director of Child Welfare to impose treatment on a 15-year-old Jehovah’s Witness who had cancer.”
18 September 2026 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“After further prayerful consideration, the Governing Body has decided that this same principle applies to the four primary components of whole blood —that’s red cells, white cells, plasma, and platelets— that are derived from another person’s blood. Therefore, each Christian must make his own personal decision about the use of these four primary components in all medical and surgical care.”
18 September 2026 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“After further prayerful consideration, the Governing Body has decided that this same principle applies to the four primary components of whole blood—red cells, white cells, plasma, and platelets—that are derived from another person’s blood. Therefore, each Christian must make his own personal decision about the use of these four primary components in all medical and surgical care.”
19 September 2026 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
“Myth: Many Witnesses, including children, die each year as a result of refusing blood transfusions. Fact: This statement is totally unfounded. Surgeons regularly perform such complex procedures as heart operations, orthopedic surgery, and organ transplants without the use of blood transfusions. Patients, including children, who do not receive transfusions usually fare as well as or better than those who do accept transfusions. In any case, no one can say for certain that a patient will die because of refusing blood or will live because of accepting it.”