The Society replied to Khufu:
"However, the 'faithful and discreet slave' feels that it would be gross disrespect for Jehovah's
command to 'abstain from blood' if a Christian abstained from the blood of dead animals or humans while partaking of the blood of living things.-Acts 15:20, 28, 29."
But JW's don't abstain from the blood of dead animals in the sense of not eating any blood whatsoever. JW's eat blood eveytime they consume meat. In it's historical context "abstaining from blood" means to drain the blood from an animal killed for food before eating it. Even when drained an animal carcass may still retain 50% of its blood. Obviously God doesn't require that we totally abstain from eating blood or we would have to be vegetarians. I find it interesting that the Jews use a koshering process in order to drain as much blood from an animal as possible but JW's are under no such requirement. Over a lifetime the average Jew eats much less blood than the average JW.
It is important to note that Jehovah himself provided the unbled flesh of unslaughtered animals specifically for purposes of eating. God allowed the Israelites to provide "alien residents" and "foreigners" with unbled meat for food as long as the animal was not killed by humans but had been found dead. These animals had died of themselves, probably due to age, disease or accident -- Deut. 14:21
Because "alien residents" and "foreigners" were bound by the Noachian Law, God's provision of giving or selling them unbled animals to eat could not have violated the Noachian Law. Jehovah wouldn't encourage people to violate his law. It is therefore logical to conclude that the Noachian Law applied only to the blood of animals killed for food.
Had Jehovah established some sort of moral imperative that the substance of blood is sacred then He would not have unilaterally provided it to the very ones He still viewed as under the Noachian Decree. God's providing the unbled meat of unslaughtered animals as food to non-Israelites is sure proof that He does not hold the substance of blood as sacred. It is life that is sacred.
The Noachian Law, applies only to blood obtained by a person's killing a creature. Since the Apostolic Decree is based on the Noachian Law it does not provide any grounds for prohibiting blood transfusions, because donated blood is not obtained by killing humans or animals. Early Christians refused to partake of blood that had been obtained by killing or by assault. However, early Christians never refused to accept medical uses of donor blood that had been generously provided by live and uncoerced donors because such technology was not available at that time.