My personal story is that I am a third generation Jehovah’s Witness.  I left the religion at about seventeen years old, to pursue a college education which the religion did not promote.  When I was born, my mother almost died of hemorrhage, but a relative secretly permitted her to have platelets.  In her 70s, she refused a blood transfusion for anemia and suffered a fatal heart attack.  Her death prompted me to revisit the religion’s stance on blood.