Here's the gist of what the article told us:
"The genetically-engineered blood is created by taking cells from umbilical cords and using a machine to mimic the way bone marrow works to produce mass quantities of usable units of red blood cells... Blood cells produced using this method are 'functionally indistinguishable from red blood cells in healthy circulation', the company claims... ‘We're basically mimicking bone marrow in a lab environment,' Arteriocyte boss Don Brown told Wired magazine."
The source material for this engineered blood is still a living tissue, obtained from a living human being. It is very different from plasma volume expanders or oxygenated fluorocarbons, which are not taken from living creatures. If I were still an active JW, I would have to say that no matter how far removed the fake blood gets from the donor organism, it still would be classified as blood.
(Let me be clear that I think the WT argument is wrong and not "Bible-based™". I'm just trying to play this game by the rules the WTB&TS has laid down.)
Let's see if we can draw a parallel with pornea. A man should not have sex with a woman to whom he is not married. That's pornea. What if he builds a sex robot with female characteristics, or a vaginal surrogate, just the "naughty bits" of a woman? What if a woman makes use of a sex robot with male characteristics, or uses an artificial phallus, just the "naughty bits" of a man?
As has been pointed out here before by others, the "fractions" argument is lame. What "fractions" of pornea are allowed?
It may even be easier to make a case for mechanical surrogate sex, because no pregnancy can result. I have long held that the boys of the WATCHTOWER aren't so much concerned about sex as with the possibility of pregnancy. This is why they go easy on pedophiles and gays (as long as those gays are at Bethel in positions of authority). Pregnancy is also a "revealer of secrets." The WTB&TS teaches that evil is OK as long as it is kept secret.
