Wired has a story about Hacker Adrian Lamo, who has refused to give blood for DNA testing on religious grounds. His lawyer declined to specify which religion, but the article notes:

In prior court cases, members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have registered opposition to blood tests for alcohol content, based on certain passages in the Bible.

The JW prohibition is on the partaking of blood, as in accepting a blood transfusion or varying human blood products. Their biblical interpretation is that the biblical injunction to “abstain from blood” applies to blood transfusions. There are some changing views on blood fractions, blood products, and they don’t go so far as to eat kosher meat.

But yes, they will refuse a blood transfusion, even to save a life.

However, Jehovah’s Witnesses have no prohibition on blood testing or DNA sampling. JWs get blood tests all the time.

If any JW thus claims religious conviction as the reason to avoid…well….conviction, it’s pure mendacity.

If anyone knows of any of these cases in which JWs have claimed “religious opposition” to giving blood for testing of any kind, please comment with a link (or any other reference).

It seems to me that if DNA were the issue, they don’t need his blood. Still, I agree with the ACLU about the FBI’s DNA bank. Why should all our DNA be on record with the government? I’d like to have it for the family records, but I’ve never thought well of this total information idea — too much potential for total control, total tyranny.

Georgia encodes our fingerprints on the Driver’s License. I had meant to protest it – I really did – but I realized my renewal was up when I was 8-1/2 months pregnant. After standing in line for about an hour I felt like I was going to pass out. When I got to the front, I said that I didn’t want to be fingerprinted since I wasn’t a criminal. They said – “Well then, that would be your choice not to have a driver’s license in Georgia.” I gave up.

Whatever religious path this admittedly interesting character is on doesn’t seem to be the issue at all. My guess would be that it’s his quirky sense of humor at work, just making it that little bit more difficult for the system.